Pump prices bring bump to budgets (08/13/2008)

Increases in county departmental budgets for 2009 were mostly reflected at the pump.

The Jay County Council began working through the front half of the 65-page department budget Tuesday night. The process was pretty smooth, with budgets fluctuating up or down without any drastic or unexpected surprises.

However, an increase seen in a lot of budgets was travel, fuel or utility line items, where high gas prices have been putting a strain on many departments.

Among some of the departments needing more money for fuel, along with the increase from the current year, were the highway department, $110,000; Jay Emergency Medical Service, $5,000; Jay/Portland Building and Planning, $1,400; Jay Counter Coroner, $1,000; Jay County Commissioners, $12,800; Jay County Assessor, $500. A few others departments had raised budgeted numbers by less than $500.

Jay County Coroner Mark Burnett, when explaining his budget briefly passed over the fuel expense, simple stating to the council, "Once again with the fuel prices."

The council didn't find much fault with the budgets they reviewed. Jay County Auditor Nancy Culy has said the department heads did a good job of keeping their budgets tight and the council didn't find much to investigate Tuesday.

At Tuesday night's budget meeting, the county council took action on a few items including:

•Approved adding a line item to the commissioners' budget of $5,000 to help pay rent and utilities for the Jay County Chamber of Commerce. The chamber must pay rent on its office in the Community Resource Center on South Meridian Street, which is owned by the city of Portland.

Director Vicki Tague explained most of the chamber's operating revenue is derived from fundraisers, and county help to pay rent and utilities could save the chamber time and effort from fundraising to focus on providing more services to member business.

•Approved a motion to alter the first deputy salary for the assessor's office to reflect an intended hire of a former employee.

•Told Jay County Assessor Terry LeMaster to wait to see what future workload will be like before moving three part-time employees in the assessor's office to full-time. LeMaster had asked for the three employees to be bumped up to full-time, but the council wanted to hold off until "the workload justifies," said council member Fred Bailey.

The council also advised LeMaster that he will need to approach the commissioners with the request before they could approve such a change.

•Decided to hold off on changing any numbers related to health insurance. While the county's health insurances expenditures are expected to climb 10 to 15 percent, the council will wait back for figures from the county's insurance agent before deciding a course of action.

•Were informed by Culy that the proposed 3 percent salary increase hit a snag. If the county increases the salaries by 3 percent across the board, new hires would be making the same as 1-year employees.

The council agreed to freeze new hire salaries at the 2008 minimum. While the county sought to avoid creating another step in the longevity scale, the new-hire freeze effectively added a step below the new minimum to the pay scale.[[In-content Ad]]Perhaps the only thing keeping some skilled employees from county work is a bit of extra cash.

At Tuesday night's Jay County Council budget meeting, commissioner Faron Parr asked if the county would be interested in setting aside a bit of money to pay a bit extra to part-time employees as needed.

For example, Parr said he had spoken with some retired highway employees who used to drive snowplows during the winter. Some of those employees would be willing to cover a plow route during heavier snows, but not for the part-time pay offered by the county.

As former employees, Parr was asking if it would be possible to pay these types of skilled laborers at their former rate for the time they work, stating that it would be better for the county to have a worker out there already familiar with the job.

"It's an asset more than an expense," he said to the council. "Part time help is getting hard to come by.

"If I can have skilled labor when I need it only when I need it, it justifies itself."

Parr said these skilled workers may only be needed a handful of times per year and wanted to know if the personnel policy would allow for such temporary hires.

"We've been pretty careful not to put numbers in (the policy)," said council member Marilyn Coleman, saying that there wasn't a restriction on the pay as far as she knew. She also told Parr the personnel committee will meet again and it could be further discussed with the county's adviser.

Councilman Gerald Kirby suggested they could "contract them at the same rate of pay," which would allow them to temporarily work for the county. Those type of contracts have been made with locals who had their own equipment.

The snag in the proposal was that these workers would be using county property in order to do the job, which could run into problems with liability insurance if they're technically not county employees. Kirby wanted to know if temporary contracts would be covered for liability.

"Explore the insurance and see if we can do it that way," he told Parr.