Freshman Commissioner Rick Lohnes questioned $200 the county spent on lunches for 10 staff members at a Martin Luther King Jr. event.
“I went,” he said. “I paid my own ticket.”
He called for a new policy on employee meals and county-funded membership to organizations such as Rotary International and Kiwanis, and the other commissioners agreed.
Other than groups that represent the county at the state level, these events and clubs amount to less than $10,000 of the county’s total budget, officials estimated.
They also shared concern about the number of employees driving county-owned vehicles.
“I’m absolutely shocked,” Lohnes said of a report given to commissioners on car usage.
The report is part of a new county policy requiring commissioners to review vehicle usage annually. It lists 377 vehicles licensed to various county departments, largely to the engineer’s office and sheriff’s department. It does not list which ones are taken home.
County Administrator Nathan Kennedy expressed concern Tuesday about a request from the United Way to use a county conference room for a backup 211 call center.
“I’m thinking that’s not really a function of county government,” Kennedy said, expressing concern about the cost of upgrading the conference room for that purpose.
Like the professional organizations, this and the vehicle issue are drops in the county’s roughly $36 million general fund budget.
“It’s the perception of taxpayer dollars,” said Commission President John Detrick.
He and Kennedy said the county needs to show it’s willing to sacrifice as they talk about cutting services and voting to renew a half percent sales tax.
Commissioners said today they plan to vote Tuesday, Jan. 25, to begin scheduling public hearings on renewing the sales tax.
In an update on the county’s budget today, Kennedy said not renewing the tax would leave a $6.4 million hole. Even with the tax, they face a possible $1.2 million shortfall, he said, if state lawmakers eliminate local government funding and investment income continues to lag.
Kennedy’s presentation showed the county’s expenditures have stayed around $33.5 million since 2006.
“We are controlling our expenses, the problem we face is our revenues,” Kennedy told commissioners.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0374.
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