The Marion County Board's Finance Committee is looking for more than a half-million dollars in budget cuts. The committee spent three hours Wednesday night going through each line item of the budget, but by the time they were done they had only able to reduce the anticipated budget shortfall by $69,000. Nearly $20,000 of that amount was taking out pay raises put in the budget by county department heads until an across the board pay increase is settled upon for non-union employees. The committee's next step is to call each office holder back to look for budget cuts. However, committee members seem resigned to finding bigger cuts at the sheriff's department or face layoffs or furlough days for courthouse employees if they want to avoid eating into their anticipated $1.3-million cash reserve at the end of this fiscal year. The law enforcement budget makes up about 42 percent of the county's expenditures. The committee even brought up the idea of looking for a private company to operate the jail if it could produce cost savings. The county's shortfall is being made worse because the coming fiscal year is one of those rare years where there is an extra payday, adding another $160,000 in expenses. Another unknown is if the State will force counties to pick up the cost of the Regional and Assistant Regional Superintendents of School out of money the counties currently receive from the personal property replacement tax. Committee member Richard Sinclair estimates the budget shortfall at $411,000 without any contingency fund. Member Erwin Hahn would like to see a $200,000 contingency fund to cover any unanticipated expenses. While he might settle for a smaller figure, Hahn said he would not vote for a budget without some contingency. Most of the cuts made Wednesday night were in the sheriff's department. The sheriff's requests for a new car was cut along with a one-dollar an hour raise for his part time employees. Committee members expressed frustration with overtime running over budget. Finance Committee Chair Dolores Wanzo says the Fraternal Order of Police Contract is not the total blame, saying a lot of the problem has to do with scheduling. There were also questions why a full-timedeputy is assigned to court security when court is in session only limited hours of the day. The committee was also critical ofthe court security officer having a county provided squad car. They rejected raising the Deputy overtime line item even though it is $13,000 over budget for the current fiscal year. The committee also cut $1,000 from the prisoner clothing fund, wanting the sheriff to pay that expense out of commissary fund proceeds. They feel that is a much more justified expense than the money the sheriff took out of the fund to purchase a new prisoner transport vehicle. With the need for more cuts, the finance committee no longer expects to make its original deadline of the regular November county board meeting to approve a tentative budget. No dates have yet been set to call in the office holders to look for ways to cut the budget. - http://goo.gl/BpGmB
