Story - The Meade County Messenger


Vol. 115, No. 26	June 25, 2008

Fiscal Court approves county spending plan in 4-3 vote

By LARRY SEE JR.
Messenger Staff

A general fund budget of $7,306,871 won final approval on a 4-3 vote during a special-called meeting of the Meade County Fiscal Court June 19.

The budget already has undergone necessary review by officials from the state Finance Cabinet, county Judge Executive Harry Craycroft said.

“The dollar amount is still the same, but they moved some stuff around,” Craycroft said.

“If we don’t have an operating budget (in place) then we won’t be able to spend money on anything after July 1,” Craycroft said.

State law mandates the county have a balanced budget in place before funds can be expended.

Casting dissenting votes were Magistrates Tom Goddard, Herbie Chism and Tony Staples.

In explaining his vote, Chism said he was voting against the budget because he didn’t feel comfortable with the amount of money included for the recycle department.

“We have $250,000 going out there and I just can’t justify it,” he said. “That was one of the reasons we cut the garbage out. I just don’t feel like we are saving money.”

Staples couldn’t see paying the additional funds for recycling, when they didn’t have the garbage included.

Magistrates earlier this year awarded a bid to an Elizabethtown based firm to handle county refuse pickup.

Recycling director Mark Gossett reported the switch has gone exceptionally well, with no complaints.

Magistrate Steve Wardrip, who voted for the budget, thought the county needed to give the department a little time to see whether or not things will work out.

“I think they will do what they are supposed to be doing and how they carry it out,” he said. “I think we should go along with it for a while.”

Magistrate Randall Hardesty, also supported the motion, and agreed the county needed to give the department time.

“If he doesn’t show improvement out there next year then we will need to go some other route,” he said. “I hate not to vote for it (the budget) as the employees need the 3 percent raise which is included in it, so I will be voting for it,”

Craycroft, the day following the meeting, called the Messenger to offer commentary.

“When we took office there was about $270,000 owed to the county and we were $720,000 in debt out there,” Craycroft said.

“Now we are about $285,000 in debt and in a couple years we will have all that paid off,” he said. “The garbage business has been franchised out and people have been pleased with the response. Their garbage cans have been set back up and the service on the recycle side has picked up tremendously.”

Craycroft said the recycling facility has been cleaned up and there are seven satellite facilities.

“People are calling and asking us to start picking stuff up,” Craycroft said. “We got a grant to acquire a commercial shredder where businesses can take their documents out and get them shredded. It is a free service and we can sell the white paper.”

He said officials are playing a guessing game to see how the budget would work for the first year.

“The state is tickled to death with what we are doing with the recycling,” Craycroft said. “Meade County used to be in the forefront (as far as recycling) and we dropped down but we are now starting to become one of the counties the state is watching again.”

Craycroft concluded by saying he wanted to reply to some of the remarks made.

In a related matter, members will start receiving a profit and loss statement for some parks bills from treasurer Shirley Fackler.

The matter was raised by Goddard who questioned the expenditure for park soft drink products, but saw no revenue coming in.

“I just wonder why they are spending this money when we can’t have a parks committee meeting,” Goddard said. “People are starting to ask me questions and I don’t have an answer.”

Goddard said if the committee doesn’t want to have required meetings, then they need to “chop them off.”

Fackler explained, in response to a question from Wardrip, once the account reaches a verified amount, via bank statements and deposit tickets, she writes a check back to the department. She writes such a check about four times a year.

“I’m not trying to say there is something illegal going on,” Goddard said. “I just know Shirley has more to do than answer all my incoming questions. We are supposed to have a parks committee meeting.”

“We just need a better way of keeping track of it somehow,” Wardrip said.

“We can do it so we know where we are coming from,” Craycroft said. “And we will make a note of it.”

In other business, members held a 35-minute closed session dealing with a personnel matter.

When they emerged, members unanimously adopted a motion to eliminate a secretarial position at Solid Waste. The position wasn’t included in the new spending plan and Gossett said, since the departure of garbage billing, they couldn’t justify having two full-time secretaries there.

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