CC Notes – April 17th 2017
The monthly meeting of the full County Commission was held on April 17, 2017. All were in attendance except Commissioners Rebecca Stone, David Gibson, Tim Claflin, and Woody Geisler. The budget process for the new fiscal year is set to start on Thursday, April 20th with an all-day Budget Committee meeting, which means it is almost time for the routine end of year budget amendments to begin. This meeting was short with only appointments and budget resolutions presented.
Resolutions
The first resolution was to reappoint David Gibson and Grant Thurman to the Adult-Oriented Establishment Board for four year terms that will expire April 1, 2021. Next, Tom Isham was appointed to the Cumberland County E-911 Emergency Communications District Board of Directors with a term that expires April 30, 2021. Both resolutions passed unanimously, with Commissioner Isham abstaining on his appointment.
The Board of Education (BOE) had two budget amendments that were passed 14 – 0. The first was for $5,440 and was used to move money from the Certified Substitute Teacher and Staff Development lines over to the Travel and Other Pre K Student Classroom Expenses. The second BOE resolution was for $7,100 for the Career and Technical Education Department. Money was moved from Certified Substitutes and Non-Certified Substitutes to Contracted Services.
Next, a resolution for $10,000 was approval to accept additional funding for the local Health Department from the State of Tennessee. $31,842 was moved to Part-time Personnel from the Full-time line in the Dispatch budget. This was to cover expenses while permanent help is being hired and trained. The Sheriff’s department needed more money in the prisoner transport and courtroom security lines, so $32,295 was moved from the Juvenile Services Part-time line to cover the expected expenditures. The final budget related line item was in the amount of $6,521 for General Government operations. This resolution covered several lines that contained small overruns. All of these resolutions were passed unanimously.
The final resolution of the evening was to appoint Terry Lowe, Robert Schwartz, and Christopher Peterson to the Cumberland County Library Board for three year terms from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2020. The resolution was passed 14 – 0.
Financial Report
BOE sales tax collections continue to be strong with $616,158 collected in March. Year to date we are ahead of the budgeted amount by $84,466 with collections of $6,058,714. EMA collections continue to be strong with the new management, with $562,344 collected. The new processes put in place by the Director have helped the budgeted gap close considerably as we are now only $191,704 down against the budget. If collections stay strong, we should have a good chance to eliminate this gap. Property tax collections are 94.4% of budget compared to 99.9% at this point last year. Even though it is tracking slightly behind last year, we are still looking to make, and possibly exceed, budget. The Hotel/Motel tax is lagging behind last year with $523,428 collected against an $810,000 budget, which is 64.6%. At this point last year we were at 68.8% of budget. Finally, Prisoner Boarding collections are $329,115 year to date. The budgeted income was $300,000, so we are at 109.7% of budget already.
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 