BLOOMFIELD, Mo. - The Stoddard County Commission approved the 2012 budget at their regular meeting Monday that shows projected revenues of $7,623,615 and projected expenditures of $7,529,134.97. The commission made no changes to the budget as discussed in their meeting Jan.17.
County Public Administrator Pam Lape was the only official to appear before the commission at the budget public hearing held Monday. She had requested that two part-time positions in her office be made full time. The commission had previously decided that they would make one position full time and one position part time.
"I am very appreciative of obtaining at full-time employee," Lape told the commission. "I still think I need two full-time employees.
Lape said she had spoken with Commissioners Carol Jarrell and Frank Sifford about the need for the full-time employees. She said Jarrell had asked her to "put together some numbers."
She proceeded to outline to the commission her case load. She said she had 39 clients in nursing homes, 18 in independent support living, 36 in RCF, 17 in ARC, five in group homes and several others in different situations. She said it was time consuming and required her to be out of the office frequently. She said, "Keeping people in the office gives me more time to work with clients."
"The girls work many more hours a week that they don't get paid for," Lape said.
She said she found it necessary to have both employees in the office each day. She said she tried working one each day but that led to a lot of "backtracking" on her part in attempting to explain the situations that arose when the other employee was not there.
"One employee just does not work as well," she said. "I need two full-time employees."
Jarrell said she recently attended a SB 40 director's meeting at which they discussed a new program called "Partnership for Hope." She said the program would increase the workload in the public administrator's office.
"I'm a firm believer that the office needs to stay open five days a week," Jarrell commented.
"After studying and thinking, I see where you need two full-time employees," Jarrell said.
Sifford was not swayed. He said he was looking down the road five years and adding employees would lead to a substantial increase in the budget. He said it was not just the salaries that added to the budget, but also benefits such as health insurance and retirement contributions. He said the initial salary increase may only be $23,000, but over a five-year period the cost could be as much as $110,000 when factoring in the benefits.
"I'm for one full-time and one part-time employee," Sifford said.
Presiding Commissioner Greg Mathis said he wanted to think about it. He told Lape he would have a decision within 30 minutes.
"How long do we have to keep the budget hearing open?" Mathis asked.
"As long as necessary," responded Sifford.
The commission then turned to the reports on mold remediation at the Justice Center. When this was concluded, Mathis returned to the administrator's request.
"I vote for one full-time and one part-time," Mathis said. "I would be open to re-evaluating it if needed."
Mathis then asked County Clerk Joe Watson if he checked into whether the county needed to pay into the County Employees Retirement Fund (CERF).
"You have to pay if they work 1,000 hours or more," Watson responded.
It was agreed by the commission that both part-time employees in the administrator's office qualified. Sifford said the payment was four percent of their pay. The commission said the county needed to begin paying into CERF for the part-time employee and asked Watson to check into whether they needed to contribute to CERF for past earnings by these employees.
The new budget also reflects a salary increase for the deputy prosecutor from $35,000 to $40,000. Prosecutor Russ Oliver had asked that a part of the salary be paid from the county general budget, but the commission left the $26,500 in the PA's budget. The remaining part is paid from Child Support Services. The new budget also adds a deputy coroner at a cost of $3,600. Also $15,000 was added to the Juvenile Office for an attorney to provide legal services.
The budget for projected revenues is 13 pages. The county's chief source of revenue in the general fund is a sales tax. The budget reflects $2,670,000 in revenue from sale tax collections. Other taxes are projected to collect $27,600 and licenses and permits add another $17,350. Fees are expected to contribute $766,400 in revenues. Miscellaneous revenues are expected to generate $413,150. Drainage district funds and other funds received from state and local sources also are calculated in the budget.
The budget for expenditures is 24 pages in length. It is difficult to decipher the individual office budgets due to separate accounts based on the revenue source. Expenditures for the sheriff, prosecuting attorney and collector's offices all have expenses paid outside general revenues. In addition, the budget for road and bridge expenditures is $1,856,700, and another $84,000 that comes to county and then is returned to the drainage districts. There are several expenditures that are paid from federal or state funds targeted for that purpose.
Still, the following offices were budgeted the following expenditure amounts from the general fund: County Commission, $96,600; County Clerk, $103,186.04; Buildings and Grounds, $304,262.84; Collector, $211,588.20; Recorder, $161,6242,60; Emergency Management, $38,355; Prosecuting Attorney, $139,494.16; Child Support Services, $48,080.62; Juvenile Officer, $180,926.80; Coroner, $47,0770; Sheriff, $1,046,568.89; Public Administrator, $94,738; and the Juvenile Detention Center, $279,512. Other office expenditure budgets are the Assessor, $395,936 and Stoddard County Archives, $29,693.24. Another large item is for employee fringe benefits, $633,000. Other expenses (such as Extension Council, Bootheel RC&D, Soil Conservation Service, public defenders, Association of Counties, etc.) amount to $297,931.
The 2012 expenditure budget is lower than the actual amount spent in 2011 of $8,332.199.33 and more than the actual amount spent in 2010 of $6,781,521.96.