County Adds To Budget to Make Repairs to Jail
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The Perry County Board placed on file for public inspection $445,446 in emergency budget amendments from the general fund. The amendments will remain on file through September and are expected to be approved at the first regular meeting in October.
County Clerk Kevin Kern said that the original 2009 budget projected a surplus of about $100,000. If all the funds that have been requested in the budget are spent, that would create a deficit of $350,000.
Kern said he did not expect every office holder to spend every cent they had requested.
The bulk of the expenditures is $330,000 set aside to make building repairs at the Perry County Jail. Sheriff Keith Kellerman was instructed to hold back enough of the revenue generated by housing Federal inmates to pay for the necessary repairs.
The original budget anticipated that revenue would be put into the general fund.
The county cannot borrow money to make repairs because there is no building commission, State's Attorney David Stanton said. If necessary, the county could borrow additional funds via a tax anticipation warrant.
The next largest expenditure raises the contingency fund line item from $50,000 to $125,000. Kern said that the county had already spent $96,000 in contingency funds this year.
Kern added that the auditors have asked that the county try to find line items in department budgets to use for most of the payments made through the contingency fund.
Treasurer Bill Taylor said that he and Kern will work with the board to implement the auditors' suggestions for next year's budget.
Kern was given permission to begin preparing the 2010 budget. The new fiscal year begins Dec. 1.
Kern said he would send out the budget forms to office holders next week. They will be due Oct. 9. The board will receive copies at the Oct. 15 meeting and can call a special meeting at the end of October to create a tentative 2010 budget which will be put on file at the first meeting in November and adopted prior to the end of that month.
In other business, the board:
heard from Taylor that real estate tax bills should be delivered to taxpayers after Labor Day. The bills were being printed. He expects to save "a couple thousand dollars" by outsourcing the printing of the bills. The due dates are Oct. 16 and Nov. 20. Taxing bodies can expect to receive their first disbursement around Oct. 20.
heard from Supervisor of Assessments John Batteau that there were 6,800 changes made to the 16,500 parcels in the county during the year. The next possible date for a county-wide reassessment is 2010. He said the board should think about how they would like to fund a complete reassessment. The last one was done in 1982.
approved a revolving loan to Fleetwood's General Stores for a maximum of $16,250 at 3 percent interest for 84 months. The funds will be used to make mandated changes to gas pumps. Total cost of the equipment upgrade is $32,500. The revolving loan committee was given authority to loan the funds. The county has $150,000 in the revolving loan fund. The funds may be used alone or in concert with other municipalities in Perry County on projects that create or retain jobs.