The Marion County Board has cut the county’s proposed $12.6-million general fund budget for the current fiscal year 10 percent across the board. The vote came after an amended motion to do only a five percent cut failed.
Budget Committee Chair Brock Waggoner made the motion. He admits it sounds drastic.
“We cannot tell the people that we have been spending their money correctly and we need to be prepared to finish these audits,” Waggoner said. “With the committees that we have, we will be making sure that all the line items that we have are divided out between the different committees. Those committees will be able to review those processes, be able to suggest and review items that we need to add to in the future and items that can be potentially saved. This creates an impetus on us as a board to move forward performing our jobs properly and performing our jobs as committees properly.”
Individual salaries will not be impacted. Waggoner says as the board committees learn exactly where the county stands financially some of the $1.2-millon in cuts could be restored through the year, possibly closer to the five percent amount.
Right now, Finance Committee Chair Chris Krupp says the county has a projected deficit of $266,000. He reports the deficit would be a half-million dollars more if the Federal CURES money was not included. Krupp says while the county board would like to have contingency funds up to $750,000 no contingency money is currently included in the budget.
Krupp had voted with the minority in only wanting a five percent across the board cut, because he felt that would be sufficient.
The budget will now be sent to their budget consultant, Bell Weather, to make the 10 percent cuts. A special meeting will then be held to pass a tentative budget. The budget can receive final approval after being on display for 15 days. The board hopes to pass a final budget before the end of the year. The board is already late on completing the budget for the fiscal year that began December 1st.
