Council gives up raise (8/26/04)

With the hard work of making cuts already completed, members of the Jay County Council made short work of the first of two readings of the 2005 budget.

The council, which had trimmed about $160,000 from budget requests in hearings earlier this month, took less than 20 minutes to discuss several issues and read the total amount budgeted for each department within county government.

The only cut made by council members at Wednesday’s hearing perhaps had a self-serving motive. At the recommendation of past president Andy Schemenaur, the council agreed to forgo a pay increase in 2005.

The proposed 3.5 percent increase would have raised the salary for each council member above $5,000 — the level which triggers a state requirement to file campaign finance disclosure forms.

Council members’ annual salary in 2005 will continue to be $4,995.50. The proposed increase would have been to $5,195.32.

All six council members present — Marilyn Coleman, Mark Barnett, Gerald Kirby, Todd Wickey, Jack Houck and Schemenaur — voted to refuse the pay raise. Councilman George Meehan was not present at Wednesday’s meeting.

The total amount in the budgets reviewed Wednesday by the council is approximately $11.2 million. Some of that amount is raised by means other than property taxes.

The largest fund, county general, has total budget requests of approximately $5.6 million.

In the budget hearings earlier this month, the council cut $164,000 from budget requests — mostly by reducing the amount of a planned pay raise for county employees.

The rest of the cuts made for 2005 will actually be done this year, as members of the council agreed to limit the amount of additional appropriations — or money that was not originally budgeted — for the remainder of 2004.

That will allow the county to maintain an operating balance, or reserve, of approximately $1.2 million.

The cuts were necessary to reduce the amount of budget requests down to the maximum amount allowed to be raised through property taxes. That amount, the maximum levy, is set by state officials.[[In-content Ad]]