Commissioners hold public hearing for budget amendments

The Hot Springs County Commissioners held a year-end budget meeting on June 30, wherein they made amendments to the 2015-2016 budget because of over expenditures.

During a public hearing on the budget amendments, Hot Springs County Clerk Nina Webber said the county had three areas in the 2015-16 budget where they had overspent in the total amount of $48,348.

Webber said the Commissioners budget overspent by $2,009, the airport budget overspent by $37,165 and the emergency management budget was overspent by $9,174.

Commissioner Brad Basse asked if the Commissioners budget was overspent because of travel expenses, for which Webber confirmed.

With emergency management, Webber explained that the overspending resulted from salary. She said half of the wages are paid via a grant, but all of it was taken out of the line item and not the grant.

Basse said that the commissioners had the grant as an expenditure line item in the budget but did not utilize it. Webber confirmed that was correct.

“In the future, we need to make sure that we use both of those line items or put all of the money into one line item,” Webber said.

Vice-Chairman Tom Ryan asked if the money to repair the over expenditures would be coming from the unused grant for the emergency management budget.

Webber explained that any unspent money at the end of the total budget would go towards the deficits.

Webber said a lot of the overspending for the airport budget was due to the FBO contract for fuel, maintenance and airport upkeep, as well as equipment.

Basse said this over expenditure was primarily due to the fact that commissioners did the budget before they finalized how the contract and airport were going to be operated.

Chairman John Lumley asked for further comment on the budget amendments. As there were none, the public hearing was closed.

Basse moved to amend the 2015-16 budget transferring $2,009 from unencumbered funds into the County Commissioners budget, $37,165 from unencumbered funds into the airport budget and $9,174 from unencumbered funds into the emergency management budget, which was approved by the commissioners.

Commissioners also approved many line item transfers in the total amount of $133,352.14.

The transfer of SLIB funds to fairgrounds projects was also discussed during the special meeting.

Ryan made a motion to approve the updated application for the fairground work to the SLIB in the amount of $25,550, which was approved by the commissioners.