Greene County approves increased budget

The Greene County Commission yesterday gave the green light to a larger 2017 budget, but it still fell $9 million short of addressing critical unmet needs submitted by county leaders.

The $147.6 million budget this year tops the 2016 budget of nearly $146 million, according to a news release.

“We faced many challenges in this year’s budget process, which started out with millions of dollars in requests from office holders and department heads that we knew we could not fulfill,” Presiding Commissioner Bob Cirtin said in the release. “The associate commissioners and I weighed each need to determine if it was something that could be patched over or if it was too critical for that Band-Aid approach.

“It is clear that many critical needs remain due to lack of funding, but the commission remains dedicated to addressing these issues.”

Within the budget, commissioners approved a general revenue fund of $42.5 million, a slight improvement over 2016’s $42.4 million.

For employees of the county, the budget includes $470,803 to make sure full-time workers with more than a year of continuous service are eligible for merit pay increases, according to the release.

Financial notes for the 2017 budget:
    •    The county plans to construct two new courtrooms to allow judges to adjudicate additional cases.
    •    The recorder’s office has paid for a new $92,000 internal server.
    •    Commissioners approved an additional $1.7 million to house prisoners outside of the county.