White County officials navigating budget season as funding requests for the upcoming fiscal year have reached approximately $2 million against only $250,000 in projected new revenue.
White County Executive Denny Wayne Robinson said the significant gap between requested funds and available revenue has forced the budget committee to deny numerous funding proposals. Robinson said the committee is currently working through a prioritization process to ensure the county only funds what is absolutely necessary to maintain operations.
“Well there’s a lot of things we couldn’t fund there was a lot of ‘asks’ and and when you got $250,000 in funding and $2 million in request some people some people are not getting what what they wanted,” Robinson said.
Robinson said there has been no discussion regarding a property tax increase to bridge the funding gap. Robinson said the county will be able to continue funding all essential services without any planned cuts to existing programs. Robinson said they county is also striving for fair compensation for all of its essential workers.
“Obviously, we want to give more raises,” Robinson said. “You know pay our employees more than what looks like’s going to be in the budget this year, but it still looks like it’s going to be at least a three percent raise across the board.”
Robinson said the requests that could not be fulfilled included additional equipment for emergency services and various building maintenance projects. Robinson said the county is also attempting to address infrastructure needs such as roof repairs and HVAC updates for several county-owned buildings.
Robinson said the county intends to move funds away from non-priority items to help bolster the pay scale for staff.
“Our deputies, our EMS people, emergency services, our solid waste people, our central maintenance… basically all the staff that is needed to operate the county are not not paid what they should be paid and we always every year we work on trying to fix that,” Robinson said. “We want to we want to keep good people in place… the better people you got working for you, the better the services are.”
Robinson said the budget committee is exploring the possibility of implementing longevity pay or step raises based on time and grade
“The budget committee is probably one of the busiest committees that we have,” Robinson said. “It gets about four to five months off to where it where it’s not really in a planning mode but the rest of the time they’re meeting two and three times a month trying to trying to get it hammered out because as soon as you get done with one it feels like you’re starting on the next one.”
Robinson said the goal is to have the final budget passed in June. Robinson said a discussion with the full White County Commission on Monday night will likely determine the direction of the budget moving forward.