CC Notes – March 21st 2016
All were present for the March regular monthly meeting of the Cumberland County Commission except for Nancy Hyder and Sonya Rimmer. The night’s agenda began with discussion of the vacancy of the Ninth Civil District Commission seat that was opened when Commissioner John Kinnunen recently passed away. The seat was unanimously declared vacant and dates were set for filling the seat. Resumes of those wishing to fill the seat until the August election can now be submitted to the County Mayor’s office. Resumes will be taken until 4:00 PM on April 6th. After that, the Election Commission will verify the eligibility of those submitting resumes to fill the seat. Each candidate that is verified by the Election Commission will have the opportunity to address the County Commission during the April 18th meeting. The Commission will then vote to fill the seat at that meeting.
Resolutions
Several routine budget amendments were approved, mostly due to end of year line item cleanups. These generally result in moving money from one line item to another within a budget. They included:
- $14,750 in BOE funds were transferred from savings in a secretarial position to pay for filling a position for an employee that was on leave.
- $20,000 was moved in the BOE budget to more accurately reflect the departments using substitute teachers.
- $32,801 was moved to correct a coding error in the General Purpose School Fund. A Human Resources secretary was accidently coded as an Assistant Principal and the coding was changed.
- $3,609 was approved to allow the County Sheriff’s Department to begin litter pickup on I-40. The State of Tennessee is paying the Sheriff’s Department to do this work. You may have noticed that the work began on 3/21/16. This amendment accepted the funds from the state into the budget.
- $7,650 was also approved to meet the intent of the Budget Committee and full Commission concerning the current budget. The Commission approved a request of funding for in-service expenses as well as travel and uniforms for the Sheriff’s Department, but the approval was inadvertently left out of the budget. The amendment placed the money in the appropriate line items.
- $26,450 was approved allowing the Sheriff to decrease expenditures from line items including Maintenance and Repairs, Reserve Deputies, and part time personnel, and increase line items to reflect additional costs for mental and inmate transports as well as the replacement of cameras.
- $11,647 was approved to allow the Health Department to accept additional funding from the State of Tennessee.
A resolution was also passed that allows the County Mayor to apply for the annual Litter and Trash Collecting Grant for the 2016 – 2017 fiscal year from the Department of Transportation. Commissioner Wendell Wilson was appointed as a member to the Joint Economic Development Board. A motion to reappoint Beth Sherrill and appoint Mike Harvel and David Hassler to the Cumberland County Solid Waste Regional Planning Board was also approved.
The final resolution authorized the County Mayor to execute the Community Economic/Community Development Cooperative Agreement. You may have heard this referred to as the Horizon Initiative. This resolution allows Cumberland County to join with the City of Crossville, the Crossville-Cumberland County Chamber of Commerce, the City of Crab Orchard, the Town of Pleasant Hill, the Cumberland County Board of Education, Roane State Community College, Tennessee College of Applied Technology, and the Joint Economic and Community Development Board in support of the community’s Horizon Initiative in an effort to grow and development opportunities in our county. This collaboration created a one stop location that can handle economic development related inquiries from local and external business and industry. The vote was 13-1-1 with Commissioner Claflin voting against, and Commissioner Farley passing.
Financial Report
Property tax collections year to date are at 95.3% of budget. The Hotel/Motel tax is still strong with $482,765 collected year to date of the $770,000 budgeted representing 62.7% of budget. Ambulance collections are still down with only $1,671,111 collected against a $3.373 million budget, or 49.5%. Prisoner boarding is at 72% of the $500,000 budget with a total of $358,049 collected through 6 months. Local Option Sales Tax collections for the BOE continue to be strong with year to date collections at approximately $5.8 million against a budgeted amount of $8.3 million. That total is ahead of the annual budget by approximately $282,000 even though March was down against budget by approximately $2,600.
Thank you for allowing me to serve the 4th District and Cumberland County. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at any time.
Sincerely
Allen Foster
Board of Commissioners
4th District Representative
http://allenfoster.net
allenfoster.com 