Crawford County officials narrow budget deficit, layoffs off the table

A budget deficit of $229,000 the fiscal year 2015 Crawford County general fund budget has been narrowed to only a $91,064 gap between anticipated revenues and budget requests as the county's quorum court prepares to meet Thursday night (Dec. 4) to determine where to make cuts.

A planned meeting Monday (Dec. 1) did not have a quorum, meaning discussions could take place but no official business could be conducted.

According to Crawford County Judge John Hall, the remaining cuts to the county's budget have come from a few different areas.

"They took $100,000 from the election commission for an off-year election, so they won't have any expense for that," he said. "Actually, very little if any. They left $12,000 in there if they need anything else."

He said $10,000 was also cut from his office budget, as well as from the public defender's office. An additional $20,000 was cut from juvenile court. The only county department to not see cuts, Hall said, was the sheriff's department.

"Now they didn't touch the sheriff's department and never have. They've got over $1 million in unappropriated funds."

Requests for expenditures by all county departments totaled $7.226 million at the start of the budget cycle in October, but County Treasurer Beverly Pyle said the county only has anticipated revenues of $6.817 million.

The largest portion of the budget, 64.3%, goes to fund the sheriff's department and other law enforcement obligations. Requests by Sheriff Ron Brown in the 2015 budget include $2.263 million for the sheriff's department and $2.121 million for the county jail for a collective request of $4.384 million.

Brown said on Nov. 19 that his requests were reduced to help the county balance its budget this year, in spite of the fact that the majority of his requests include salaries. The personnel requests from his budget requests total $2.719 million. An additional $240,285 to hire six new jailers, he said, come from a portion of the quarter cent sales tax passed earlier this year to fund law enforcement operations.

"I made $140,000 (in cuts) at the last meeting (in November). What I basically did was cut the operations out of the general fund and just used the remaining balances of the automation funds and the Act 209 money and the sheriff's communications fund and that just leave salaries coming out of that (general fund)," he said at the time.

Hall said Monday that the county's new quarter-cent sales tax to fund law enforcement operations were expected to bring in the $1 million of unappropriated revenues next year and $1.5 million in 2016 before the jail opens. He added that it is unknown whether the court will seek to use any of the funds to shift budgetary burdens associated with the sheriff's department off the general fund.

"Out of that (unappropriated funds), if they use some of it to balance the budget or some of it to get (funding off) the back of the county, it's their (the quorum court's) decision," Hall said. "That's basically the only place there is money that is not (appropriated)."

He said the layoffs of county employees that had been discussed with the media earlier in the budget cycle are now off the table since the county has been able to find more than $140,000 in available cuts.

"There are several ways they can go after it, but it just depends on how the Quorum Court decides to do it," Hall said. "But we're not cutting the staffing positions. That ($90,000) would only cut two people."

As for how many more meetings of the court will be required to pin down a budget, Hall said it is an unknown at this point.

"It depends on where they try to cut, what type of argument ensues from where they're going to get it," he said. "But it does not involve cutting personnel, just where the cuts are going to come from and where they're going to try to find the money. There'll be different ideas from people on the court on where to try to find the money."

Thursday's Crawford County Quorum Court budget meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Crawford County Circuit Court, Courtroom 2 at 220 S. 4th St. in Van Buren.