The Marshall County Council members discussed the 2019 budget Monday morning. About two hours was spent trimming more than $360,000 from the General Fund budget to make sure it balances within projected revenues.
Among those cuts was that of the proposed salary for a potential county engineer position. It had been reduced from $85,000 to $65,000 in a previous meeting concerning the budget, but the council voted 5-2 to eliminate it completely from the commissioners’ budget. Heath Thornton and Jon VanVactor voted to leave it in the budget while James Masteron, Don Morrison, Judy Stone, Bill Githens, and Penny Lukenbill voted to take it out of the budget.
The council did add a Part-Time Deputy Prosecutor position at the request of Prosecutor Nelson Chipman. He said that person will be assisting him and other deputy prosecutors in helping to minimize the jail population.
“A big chunk of that person’s responsibility would be developing an approach as people are coming into the jail, being booked, on how to deal with them in terms of are if they’re going to be staying. If they are going to stay, how can we minimize the length of time?” said Chipman.
He mentioned that the top offenses are driving under the influence and failure to appear. He added that about 11 pilot programs are available which may become mandatory in 2020.
That position will be funded out of the Pre-Trial Diversion line item and the Jail LIT Fund.
The final action before the budget adoption was the consideration of employee raises. With all of the action taken to cut the budget, the council found it appropriate to approve a $1,000 raise for all full-time employees and a 50 cent-per-hour increase for part-time employees in the range of pay. The Weights and Measures Department Head will see a $250 increase along with the Deputy Coroner. The commissioners will each receive a $500 increase in compensation while the council members will each get a $250 increase in compensation. Council President Judy Stone did oppose the vote concerning the commissioner and council member increase.
With that, the council unanimously approved the 2019 budget. Ordinances for the Argos Community School Board budget and the budget for the Solid Waste budget were also approved.
