District 2 Supervisor Jerry Harris indicated that the Lee County Circuit Court Clerk’s Office will be cut by $27,460; Commissioner of Revenue’s Office will be cut by $4,985; Commonwealth Attorney’s Office will be cut by $22,735; Sheriff’s Office will be cut by $85,919; and the Treasurer’s Office will be cut by $5,968.
The board promptly approved the decision to reduce the current fiscal year budget by the amounts listed above.
Initially, the Lee County Treasurer’s Office was projected to be reduced by $11,936, and the Lee County Commissioner of Revenue’s Office was projected to be reduced by $19,939. Budget reductions for all other local constitutional offices stayed as originally proposed. Those constitutional offices are 100 percent state reimbursed; therefore, the full reductions were imposed.
County Administrator Dane Poe explained that employee salaries of the Lee County Treasurer’s Office and the Commissioner of Revenue’s Office are funded 50 percent by the county. He asserted that the State Compensation Board sets the salary, but the county must pay half.
“The Compensation Board reductions were total amounts with one-half being local money,” Poe contended. “In implementing the reductions, the Board of Supervisors did not reduce the local portion of funding since it was already budgeted, only the state reimbursed portion.”
As for the Commissioner’s Office, Poe stated that they will have additional work this spring due to changes made by the Board of Equalization with regard to the latest reassessment, and will have to change addresses on all tax accounts due to the E-911 address conversion.
“Again, the Board did not reduce the local share — and only half of the state share — in order to provide the staffing needed to accomplish these non-recurring tasks,” explained Poe.
Moreover, Chairman Carl Bailey spoke about the state budget, and how the composite index was going to noticeably affect the county this year.
“Not only is the state cutting everything, they’re also raising the composite index to where the county is going to be responsible for about four hundred more thousand dollars come next budget year,” declared Bailey. “This is a hard financial time. It’s hard for everybody.”
County Administrator Dane Poe then discussed the highlights of Governor Kaine’s proposed budget plan.
“I don’t know how much of that will be implemented, or how much it will be adjusted,” Poe explained. “One of the quarks to his proposal is to carry over the current composite index to next fiscal year, and not use the increased numbers, or the adjusted numbers, until 2012 budget year.”
Poe then said, “Should that occur, based on the level of funding proposed in his budget for Lee County, our local share would actually reduce by about $108,000.”
Poe went on to explain that should the General Assembly adopt the budget and use the new composite index, then Lee County would see an increase of over $400,000 in budget reductions.
Chairman Bailey responded:
“I would say with the state being $3.6 billion in debt... I am sure the composite index is not going to go lower. From what I hear, the new governor said that the old governor’s budget was not his budget. We will just have to wait and see what the General Assembly does.”
Bailey then urged everyone within the community to lobby their state senators and congressmen, as well as Delegate Kilgore.
“I urge everyone to lobby them, and tell them that we have a poor county here. It’s a struggle everyday,” expressed Bailey. “We don’t need anymore cuts than what we have already had. This is two years in a row now that we have had pretty bad cuts. It’s a tough time, a tough time.”
In closing, the board approved the decision to permanently extend the tax deadline to December 5, and then broke into executive session.
Adam Young is a Staff Writer for the Middlesboro Daily News. He can be contacted by e-mail at ayoung@middlesborodailynews.com.
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