By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
The Ellis County Commission worked to trim a more than $285,000 deficit for the 2019 budget at Monday’s commission meeting.
When the commission began the 2019 budget process, it faced a more than $670,000 shortfall between anticipated revenues and expenditures. Following a pair of budget work sessions, the commission had trimmed the budget deficit to approximately $285,000.
At Monday’s meeting, the commission focused primarily on transfers to the capital equipment fund to eliminate the remaining deficit.
County Administrator Phillip Smith-Hanes described the capital equipment fund as a savings account.
“The operating budget is sort of our checking account, and the capital budgets are kind of our saving account and one of the expenses we have in operating budget is a transfer to our saving account,” Smith-Hanes said. “But if we don’t make that we don’t get to do the things to the house or go on vacation or whatever we would normally spend those saving for.”
At the end of each fiscal year, Smith-Hanses said, departments are allowed to transfer half of any remaining funds into the capital equipment fund that can be used to pay for equipment replacement or upgrades in the future. Those include vehicles, copiers and voting equipment.
Commissioner Barb Wasinger said the commission wanted to avoid taking money once again from the Road and Bridge Department and taking some of the capital budget funds was a way to do that.
The biggest transfer of $130,000 came from the Treasurer’s capital budget. According to information presented, the Treasurer’s department did not have any planned capital expenditures planned for the next five years.
The commission decided to transfer $60,000 from the Appraiser’s capital budget and $78,000 from Risk Management. According to Smith-Hanes the risk management fund is specifically tied to employee health costs and helps to cover the increase in insurance costs.
They also decided to transfer small amounts from the County Administrator, Commission, Environment and Register of Deeds capital budgets.
Those moves along with a few other reductions reduced the deficit to approximately $13,000. The remaining funds, to balance the budget, will come from the buildings capital improvements fund.
Smith-Hanes will present the commission with the proposed budget and they plan to have a public hearing in August.
“I want to thank to commission for your work, I know this sausage making tonight was not practically pleasant,” Smith-Hanes said. “But it is the situation we find ourselves in.”
In other business, the commission got a report and the Ellis County Drug Court from Judge Glenn Braun, appointed a voting delegate for the KAC Conference, got a report from the Cottonwood Extension District and met in executive session to discuss non-elected personnel matters. No action was taken.