Greene cuts furloughs in budget
By Margaret Fisher, The Free Press, Kinston, N.C. | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
Workers will only have one furlough day next fiscal year, in contrast to six this year.
On
"They'll get paid for the time off,"
That decision came out of the
The board will meet at
It was a challenge to balance the proposed budget, currently at about
"In preparing the 2014-2015 budget," he wrote in an email, "we continued to face problems due to increased operating costs, and projected revenues continue to remain stagnant or are showing little growth.
We continued to look for areas to trim costs and look for additional ways to save money. Even with these challenges, we believe the proposed budget is adequate to meet the needs of the county."
Approved changes to the budget include increasing the salary of EMS employee
"The items Michael (Rhodes, health director,) brought to you last week, the adjustments to the health department budget," Hicks said to the board, "... that will be covered with those
Anderson was moved up one salary pay grade because of assuming the additional safety duties.
"We do have the opportunity each year on our insurance's workers' comp and our property liability," Hicks said, "to get an actual reduction in our insurance costs if we have a safety program."
Fee changes include increasing landfill fees by
The landfill closure fund is the fee charged to property owners to cover costs associated with closing the landfill at whatever point that becomes necessary, Public Works Director
The current annual fee is
Hicks said he would bring information on possible additional recreation revenues to Monday's meeting.
"We kind of need to be in line with the other counties," Commissioner
Hicks said he expects to bring the custodial services back in-house to save more than
"We anticipate hopefully completing that (transfer) by
Hicks said several of the changes, including reducing the contingency fund, will generate enough savings to allow for eliminating the five furlough days.
Funds left over at the end of the year are expected to be placed into the fund balance, he said.
Heath said the board is not completely comfortable reducing the furlough days, but wants the fund balance -- currently at 12.32 percent -- to grow next year as much as it did last year and is expected to have grown by
"We've done quite well this year and last year -- we feel like -- recovering the undesignated fund balance" Heath said. "We've done that at the expense of the employees and the taxpayers. This is a way to show our appreciation to the employees, as far as the furlough days off with pay."
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