White County Commission Chair Derrick Hutchings calling for compromise and more input to finalize the county budget for next fiscal year.
Hutchings said the Commissioners had the votes to amend the budget by dropping the property tax rate to $1.42, but the full court ultimately rejected the budget a second time. Hutchings said the vote made him think a solution is near.
“I think that’s a sign that we’re really close,” Hutchings said. “I feel like some just minor tweaks, and we’ll be able to get this passed somewhere in this $1.39, $1.42 range.”
Hutchings said he wanted to schedule a meeting to make some adjustments, but scheduling conflicts among the Commissioners led to the decision to hold discussion until the previously scheduled August 4 meeting.
Hutchings said the Commissioners have been held up on three key sticking points. One is whether or not to change the EMA Director position to a full time role. Others were employee raises and the hiring of a Parks and Rec Director.
The current budget proposal includes all three items. Hutchings said the EMA Director’s full time salary would be some $65,000. The employee pay raise is currently set at $4,000 for full time employees, and the Parks and Rec director is to be hired out of the Parks and Recreation fund, which gets two pennies of the property tax rate.
Hutchings said he and a couple other commissioners have submitted suggestions for a third proposal. One of his recomendations was to remove one of the two planned ambulance remounts.
“I’m also going to make the suggestion to remove the EMA Director, reduce him back to part time, but give a pay increase,” Hutchings said. “Currently, the director is working 15-20 hours a week and he’s making about $15,000. I’m going to suggest to bring his pay rate up to somewhere around $25,000 to $30,000.”
Hutchings was one of the commissioners who initially favored making the EMA Director position full time.
Hutchings said those moves would save about two and a half pennies, which would bring the property tax rate down to $1.395.
Hutchings said a compromise has to happen for the budget to get across the finish line, but those hang ups continue to remain a challenge. Hutchings said more commissioners outside of the budget committee need to provide their input in order to reach a solution.
“They’re just not willing to compromise on what they’ll vote for,” Hutchings said. “They have particular things they want or don’t want in there, and they’ve not been willing to compromise thus far. And I hope they’re willing to come around and see that we need to pass the budget for the county to move forward.”
Time is running short for the White County Commissioners to get their budget passed. If a resolution is not met in August, the Comptroller will get involved.