Putnam County Commissioners heard a preliminary request for 17 new employees during the Budget Committee’s first meeting Monday night.
Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter said he asked department heads for a first glance at needs for the new year, pulling together this first report. Several departments asked to increase expenditures. Porter said the first draft is not his proposed budget but is a starting point.
“We’ve got plenty of time, you’ve got the whole month of May and the whole Month of June,” Porter said. “My recommendation is to you is that you start picking out what departments you want to hear from. Most of the time, the budget committee hears from the departments that have the big increases.”
Several committee members said they would like to see department heads present on why they need additional employees or additional funding. Commissioner Vinnie Faccinto said he believes that might help improve the efficiency of departments without allocating extra funding.
“You would think that in most people’s offices, there could be some reorganization you know, maybe you had something that was a priority three or four years that has run it’s course, and maybe you want you know, instead of just adding something on you could reorganize that and apply it something has a new area,” Faccinto said. “I would just like to see them think about it from that standpoint and present it that way instead of just saying I just need five percent more than I needed last year.”
Faccinto said his gut feeling is the county has done a good job of not wasting money over the past couple of years.
“I think we should showcase that a little bit this year in there because you don’t get to hear from them a lot, even in front of the commission, you know, and all of that,” Faccinto said. “I know a lot of them return money every year to us.”
Porter said the county will not get revenue numbers until May. Porter also said the only thing the county has to be careful about is the interest on revenue.
“You never know what the Feds gonna do,” Porter said. “Right now, it’s staying level where it’s been after they dropped it a point, but who knows what’s gonna happen in the next little bit, and we count heavily on interest in county general when it comes to revenue.”
The Budget Committee elected Commissioner Ben Rodgers as the committee chairman and elected Commissioner Chris Cassety as the committee vice-chairman. It’s next meeting will be May 12 at 5:30pm.
