News From The Budget Meeting Held 7 March 2013

First I must apologize for posting this so late, seems like sometimes nothing goes right as far as you trying to get something done.

1. Emergency Management: Approval was given by the committee to spend 86,703 dollars out of the Litigation Fund to purchase a natural gas run generator that would power the entire Courthouse Annex in case of a power failure. The winning bid was submitted by Blalock Plumbing and Electric.

2. A School Board amendment that had been passed by the school committee to transfer funds within the school budget was approved by the committee.

3. After much discussion about the driving school and the request for an additional $5,000.00 from Judge Damron to pay a secretary through June, approval was given to raise the price of a speeding ticket from $130.00 to $150.00 and use that increase to pay for the driving school and secretary with the remainder going into the general fund. The vote was Commissioners Beech, Cary, Adams, Pollard and Jackson voting yes. No votes were cast by Commissioners Houston and Coleman.

4.  A report was given by the County Executive on the comparison of hiring a Janitorial Service as opposed to having the current system of county employed custodians to clean the Courthouse and Annex.

The Janitorial services would provide a nightly cleaning service by a staff of fully bonded and insured personnel. All cleaning supplies would be provided by the service and there would be one staff person available each day from open to close for any emergency cleaning. This service had an excellent reputation within their four state service area where they have satisfactory contracts with banks, credit unions, high security areas at Redstone Arsenal among other areas. The cost of this service would be $78,235.68 a year.
Currently it cost the county $134,330.21 plus over $6,000.00 for supplies. This would mean over fifty thousand dollars a year in savings to the county.
Current janitorial employees would lose their jobs and it's unsure if they would be rehired by the new Service Company. A Maintenance Person would still have to be hired but that cost was not included in the $134,330.21.  

5. Tennessee Services Loan Pool had a representative present information about refinancing a current bond that would drop the rate from 3.5% to 1.71% this would result in a savings of approximately $15,000.00 a year for the life of the bond. There would be a closing cost on this change of approx. $1,560.00 and would be rolled into the loan.

6. Payment to City for Airport Expense. There was much discussion and dissatisfaction among those present involving the interlocal agreement for the airport, the main contention being the idea that the county is required to pay half the expense but has no input in its operations. It was expressed that the only involvement the county has with the airport is getting a bill with no explanation other than to say pay it. This year the county's part of the bill is $43,609.00 up from $39,400.00 last year, no explanation or itemization included.
Motion to re-examine the airport agreement and to not pay at this time was approved.

7. Discussion was held about the sales taxes being up this year but the county was not getting their share because the increased rate goes to Sam Davis Park. Dissatisfaction was expressed that neither the Commission nor Executive knew how much was being paid on the note for Sam Davis Park, with the main question being whether the city is paying the total amount of the designated sales tax each month or simply making a set payment  and putting the rest in their general fund.

NEW BUSINESS:
Much discussion was held without decision about placing SRO's in each school at an approximate cost of $280,000.00 a year. Emotion dominated the discussion and reason was mostly ignored. Commissioner Reedy presented a Resolution to fund the SRO's at $280,000.00 a year. The Chairman stated that the Resolution was so poorly worded that it could not be adopted by the County Legislative Body and as presented have any legality. There is nothing in the written resolution describing where the money might come from but it was verbally stated a Wheel Tax would be the means. The resolution was withdrawn to possibly be re-written and presented at the March Legislative Body Meeting.
One huge flaw by itself will bury this Resolution.

OLD BUSINESS:
The County Attorney was not present and therefore no one knew if the attorney had filed the proper paperwork, as required, to proceed with actions on the Waste Treatment project at the interstate.