Franklin Co. Might Start 2018 Year in Debt

Franklin County could start the 2018 Fiscal Year in the red.

County manager Beth Thomas gave an outlook on the upcoming budget in this week’s meeting of the Franklin County Commissioners. 

“Unfortunately there are quite a few increases that are going to be mandated or required of us,” said Thomas. “Taking those increases into consideration, I will start out with a 1.3 million dollar deficit, of course this is just first glance, these numbers will need to be firmed up.”

Thomas said several factors may contribute to deficit.

“The supplemental cancer insurance for our volunteer fire department, it’s estimated that it  will cost $400 a year per firefighter,” said Thomas. “We have the increase in Elected Official salaries, our health insurance cost is expected to be an increase of 20 percent, or $285,000.”

As well as increased spending for the County Jail.

“Other factors include operational expenses that we’re incurring now, including increases to jail outsourcing, it’s estimated that that might be a $120,000 increase. We also have cost overruns in certain departments,” she said.

Thomas hopes to have better numbers once the tax digest comes in at the end of April and a complete proposed budget for the county in May.