FARMINGTON — The Franklin County Budget Advisory Committee is scheduled take its final vote on a proposed $9.4 million spending plan for 2023-24 on May 25. It includes county government, jail and nonprofit organizations.
The vote will be held at 6 p.m. in the courtroom at the county Courthouse.
Once members determine the budget, it will be sent back to commissioners. It would take an unanimous vote of the three commissioners to send any changes back to the committee. It would take six of nine members on the committee to override the commissioners’ proposed changes. All committee members serve on the select board in their towns.
Several residents of the county either spoke or sent in emails in support of nonprofit organizations being funded at the agencies’ request levels and noted during a public hearing Tuesday the good the agencies do.
Former Executive Director Renee Whitley of the Franklin County Children’s Task Force told the committee that task force staff members were there to help families when COVID-19 struck in 2020 and their “lives were turned upside down.”
Besides providing after-school and summer activities and parenting education support for families, the task force had been providing about 2,000 families with clothing and winter boots, but they could not afford to keep the Clothing Exchange program going. It closed in 2022 after 34 years.
The Clothing Exchange began in the late 1980s when families, who were “experiencing struggle could find clean clothing in good condition free of charge,” according to the task force.
The exchange was first funded through the Franklin County Commissioners’ funding source and later the United Way. The lack of continued funding prompted the leadership of the agency to decide to stop the program, according to the Task Force information online.
Commissioners stopped funding outside nonprofit agencies several years ago. The Budget Advisory Committee added the money back into the budget last year at the request of community members.
The committee’s recommendation for nonprofit agency requests is $297,040 for 2023-24 while the commissioners propose $145,942.
The budget panel’s spending package includes a 5% raise for nonunion employees, except for part-time elected officials, which is 2% more than commissioners have in their proposed spending plan.
Commissioners included 3% raises for nonunion in their budget. In the past it was pointed out to the budget committee that commissioners have the sole authority to set an employee’s rate of compensation.
Several employees covered by union contracts have either received or are set to receive a 15% raise.
The committee took an initial vote in April on a proposed 2023-24 budget of $9.4 million. Of that, nearly $6.7 million is for county government and $2.7 million is for the jail. Neither amount factors in anticipated revenues and does not factor in an emergency generator.
The committee will take up a request for $158,000 for an emergency generator at the jail on May 25. Commissioners opened two bids for the generator May 2, which was after the initial vote.
The commissioners’ budget without factoring in revenues is nearly $9.3 million. Of that amount, $2.7 million is for the jail and $6.5 million for county government. It doesn’t include the $158,000 for the generator.
Among contributions to the increase in the budget outsourcing the finance operations for the county to a full-service accounting firm. The cost for the service is $100,000 year, according to the budget summary.
Increase in staff at the jail, Sheriff’s Office, information technologies, and courthouse is a large factor in the budget increase, according to county Administrator Amy Bernard.
“Costs for the county are increasing. Salary increases for existing employees that were deferred for multiple years were given in late June 2022, which was not incorporated in last year’s budget. Instead, they were paid out of (the county’s) undesignated funds,” Bernard wrote.
The decisions made by the commissioners to use undesignated funds along with American Rescue Plan Act funds for capital and operating costs of the county resulted in artificially low prior year’s budget cost, Bernard wrote in the budget summary.
The “union increases were exceptionally high this year, and contractual costs continue to increase,” she wrote. “Along with a prior history of not budgeting for expenses nor capital costs creates a jump in the county and jail budgets.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
