Council passes budget

After a lengthy and extensive process to compile next year’s county budget, the final product has been adopted.
Jay County Council passed the 2017 budget Wednesday night. It comes in at $16.6 million total, with its general fund equaling $7.4 million.
Of the general fund, the commissioners budget makes up $2.1 million. Also budgeted within county general is $449,378.18 for the retirement center, $865,849.20 for Jay County Sheriff’s Office and $1,039,884.26 for Jay County Jail.
The largest budget outside the general fund is the highway department, which totals $2.9 million overall. Jay Emergency Medical Service is slated to authorized to spend $1.2 million in 2017. The county economic development income tax, infrastructure, cumulative bridge and cumulative capital development funds total $442,500, $651,526, $570,000 and $400,000 respectively.
Auditor Anna Culy told council members Mike Leonhard, Gary Theurer, Ted Champ, Bob Vance, Mike Rockwell, Cindy Newton and Jeanne Houchins that the 2017 budget is “pretty comparable” to the budget adopted last year.
The budget adopted last year was $15.7 million dollars. Culy said part of the increase this year stems from a $250,000 rainy day line-item intended for emergency expenses as well as funds for the purchase of a new dispatch system for Jay County Sheriff’s Office.
“It’s up, but we know why,” Culy said.
Next year’s budget was compiled in an extensive process of preparation. Amid concerns that the county was over-spending and depleting its rainy day fund, a committee was formed earlier this year and held a series of meetings from May to August to review the budget months earlier than usual.

The committee was formed and a financial consultant hired as an adviser after the county used $500,000 from its rainy day fund in an attempt to balance the 2016 general fund budget.
The committee consisted of council members Champ, Houchins and Vance, commissioners Faron Parr and Doug Inman, county engineer Dan Watson and Culy, who all worked with Financial Solutions Group accountant Greg Guerrettaz.
The group proposed two dozen recommendations to county council.
Major recommendations included cuts to part-time elected official pay and no salary increases in 2017.
Commissioners and county council members will both see cuts in pay next year, but council approved raises for approximately two dozen employees during its budget review in September. About half of those employees are highway department truck drivers.
Meanwhile, council tabled a decision to appropriate $12,350 in the sheriff donation fund for monies donated to pay for a new K9 the department received recently. Council would like to see the overall cost and expenses of the dog from Sheriff Dwane Ford before moving forward.
Ford was not present at Wednesday’s meeting. Later in the meeting, Vance said council should encourage department heads to be present at meetings to answer questions on decisions pertaining to their departments.
“Either that, or we just need to table a time or two and they’ll come up,” he said.
In other business, council:
•Approved additional appropriations from the infrastructure fund in the amount of $85,936.25 for a payment on a new dispatch system in the sheriff’s office’s, $35,000 for repair work at Jay County Courthouse and the health department and $15,000 for repairs at Jay County Jail.
•Tabled acting on an ordinance relating to the county’s salary schedule and compensation policies.
•Approved transfers of $11,000 from highway department’s gas, oil and lube line-item to highway equipment for the purchase of new equipment, $20,000 to Jay Emergency Medical Service from paramedics and EMTs to pay wages and $200 to Jay Superior Court from Guardian Ad Litem to overtime for anticipated needs for the remainder of the year.  
•Decided to have approximately $2,225 come from the general fund to finance the veteran’s service office for the rest of the year. Council plans to appropriate the additional funds at its meeting next month.
•Heard from Joelle Freiburger of the public defenders office that she recently filed paperwork to request $7,383.28 in 2017 to raise the chief public defender’s salary to bring it in compliance with state requirements for salary minimums. Freiburger said the office hasn’t revised its comprehensive plan since 2000 and that the chief public defender has to make approximately the same salary as the county prosecutor.