Committee’s budget recommendation goes to quorum court

The 3-percent cost-of-living adjustment for Garland County employees advanced earlier this month leaves the 2019 general fund budget with a more than $1 million cushion between expenses and the state-mandated spending cap.

The Garland County Quorum Court Finance Committee sent an $18,324,217 budget for the full quorum court to consider later this month. Projected spending is slightly less than the $18.7 million budget the quorum court adopted for the current year.

The $21,488,679 in projected revenue puts spending at 85.27 percent of the revenue forecast, leaving $1,015,094 before the 90-percent appropriation cap is reached.

“We’re going to have to stay as tight on everything as we can,” District 12 Justice of the Peace and County Judgeelect Darryl Mahoney told the Finance Committee. “I want our employees taken care of. I want to retain the ones we’ve got. Right now we’ve got as good a group of department heads and elected officials as we’ve ever had. I’ll need your help throughout the year to stay on track.”

The total budget comprising all county funds projects $87,016,587 in spending against $106,179,126 in revenue, including $32,250,000 from the road improvement bond fund secured by the five-eighths cent sales tax voters approved in a June 2016 special election.

The county has already paid the state $5 million from the bond fund for preliminary engineering and design of the more than 5-mile extension of the King Expressway to the junction of highways 5 and 7. County officials said last month they expect the state to invoice the county next year for the $25 million balance of its $30 million cost

share on the $60 million project.

About $20 million of the $54.6 million bond issue has been set aside for county and city road improvements.

The Finance Committee’s budget recommendation includes a $490,100 reduction in the solid waste fund’s 2019 expenses. Those funds were budgeted for the expansion of the Cedar Glades Landfill next year, but the county decided to incur the expense in the current budget year.

The Finance Committee gave a do-pass recommendation to a $539,110 appropriation to pay for the expansion in 2018. The $180,000 transfer the committee approved from the line item used to pay private haulers the county contracts to collect residential garbage to a capital line item was part of the appropriation.

Removing the cost of the expansion from the 2019 budget leaves the solid waste fund with $9,900,777 in expenses against $13,439,719 in projected revenue.

The committee also adjusted projected revenue and expenses for the detention center’s commissary fund, increasing the revenue forecast by $100,000 and the inmate supplies and telephone line items by $50,000 and $40,000. The commissary fund receives commissions on inmate phone calls and purchases of personal care items, clothing and food.

The county collects a 65-percent commission on in-state calls inmates place from phone terminals in the jail’s housing units and a 42-percent commission on commissary sales. Per statute, most of the proceeds have to be spent on maintaining and operating the detention center.

The detention center’s rising inmate population led the sheriff’s office to request the adjustment.

The committee’s budget recommendation also included a $2,000 raise for the Division 4 circuit court bailiff.