County Commission’s First FY 18 Budget Public Hearing Tomorrow

 The Stephens County Commission will hold their regularly scheduled meeting tomorrow 8:30 a.m. and on the agenda is the first public hearing on the FY 18 budget.

Finance Director Phyllis Ayers said that the budget they are facing leads to difficult decisions because the county has no new revenues.

“We have a significant amount of increases that people need to do their jobs and retain their employees and no new revenues.”

The requested budget was presented at their last meeting due to disagreement within the commission on what to include in the budget. They held a work session last Wednesday to narrow these decisions down.

At the work session, they concluded a 5 percent salary increase for full-time county employees, a 2 percent increase for part time employees, a 3.5 percent retirement match and coverage of the increase in insurance for their employees.

During the work session, they also discussed where to make cuts in the budget. They decided on cutting parts of the requested budgets for the library, development authority, humane shelter, cost of a new senior center bus, the sheriff’s office, Northeast Georgia Community Concert, the rec department and the Meals on Wheels program.

Commissioner Debbie Whitlock said that she doesn’t want to cut these programs’ budgets, however, with the current financial situation, they have no choice.

“I am trying to do what I think is best for this county,” said Whitlock. “Our employees have got to be paid and our taxpayers that are paying for all this need to have some relief. And we’ve got programs that are wants, not needs and if money has to come out, and it does because of the financial situation, that’s where it comes from. And it’s going to hurt, but our employees have been hurt for years. We either step up or we lose them.”

The meeting tomorrow will be at the Stephens County Court House and is open to the public.