By Taylor Boyd
The Patrick County Budget Committee is reviewing a proposed spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year that is currently estimated at $14,000 under budget.
County Administrator Michael McGuinness, who had served in the role for 101 days as of Monday, said he has not seen entities work harder to review their budgets.
Assistant County Administrator/Human Resources Director Donna Shough and Finance Officer Lori Jones “led the charge. The Sheriff (Dan Smith), everybody cut and really did the best that they could,” he said.
McGuinness said the budget committee meeting scheduled for Feb. 23 was canceled when the proposal was about $16,000 over budget.
“I refuse to go to the supervisors and the public being over budget. To me, as a county administrator, that’s your primary function,” he said.
The current proposal includes the Patrick County school division’s preliminary budget, which was higher than anticipated.
“The budget that we have today, with roughly $14,000 under budget, is if the school, in fact, rates the increase that they believe that they rate, and that increase is $575,000. There’s an opportunity that perhaps that the county could be $589,000 under budget” depending on the school budget, but “that’s a big if,” he said.
Because the school division and the county calculate average daily membership differently, McGuinness said he contacted Schools Superintendent Dr. Jason Wood and expects to hear back early this week.
“This budget includes the worst-case scenario if the school does see that increase. If not, I think it’s a vast difference from $2.1 million over last year to come in at $589,000 under budget. That’s a testament to everybody that worked on it,” McGuinness said.
He added there will be no increase in employee health insurance costs this year, crediting Shough’s work.
“What that means is it’s hard to go ahead and try to make a budget if you don’t have the money. There were seven years in a row this county didn’t pay employees a raise. So we were able to get that in the budget as well. As this sits, this is a two percent pay raise across the board for every employee,” he said.
While the budget book shows some employees receiving a 15 percent increase, McGuinness said that reflects salary adjustments made during the previous fiscal year by a previous administrator.
“There was some increases in employees’ salaries that are computed into that. So, if I give employee A two percent, he got or she got two percent from last year to this year, but during the year last year, that person already received a raise from the prior county administrator (Beth Simms) of 15 or 16 percent. So, when you see an employee on the budget that gets a 17 percent pay raise – no, every employee got a two percent pay raise, except for I believe three,” he said.
McGuinness said he did not include a salary increase for himself.
“I would never put my salary increase as the county administrator in here. If the supervisors feel at the end of the day that there’s money, then they will give me a pay raise and justify it. If they don’t, that’s just part of being the administrator,” he said.
The county’s advertising budget increased by $500, and the grants communication manager position, which had a salary of $63,654 in last year’s budget, has been removed. McGuinness said the county plans to contract with Granting Solutions LLC, a local business, for grant writing services.
“She is going to charge us an hourly rate. She’s going to come in at the beginning of the month, she’ll sit down, and we’ll give her the grants we want her to chase, and she’ll go home that night and tell us how much it will cost,” he said, adding that the company’s grant writer has a 95 percent success rate.
About $50,000 has been allocated for contracted grant services.
“Not only does it save $13,654 for the county, it also does not require us to pay benefits because this is a company that we 1099 like any other vendors. So there’s a win right there for the county,” he said.
McGuinness said the Commissioner of the Revenue’s budget increased due to higher postage and office supply costs associated with mailing tax bills and reassessment notices.
“You look straight across the board, the first thing that jumps out is the postal service. A $2,000 increase, a 23.53 percent increase. That’s going to be the tax bills, that’s going to be the reassessment team. Postage has just gone up. Office supplies have gone up because she’s sending out more notices with the reassessment,” he said.
Despite those increases, McGuinness said the Commissioner of the Revenue’s budget is 0.85 percent lower than last year.
The Treasurer’s Office budget increased because a part-time employee’s hours will rise from 15 to 29 hours per week.
“That’s where the salary increase is. She’s currently in the system, so we really didn’t hire a new individual, we’re just increasing 14 hours a week at the max,” he said.
The committee also heard budget requests from Smith and Emergency Management Director Scottie Cassell.
