Commission Looks at Budget

The Jasper County Commissioners had their first budget work session Monday and reviewed the anticipated revenues as well as the departmental requests for expenditures.

In the first look, projected revenue is $10,168,169 if the commission chooses the rollback rate. The initial requests for expenditures from the departments total $11,067,743.

At this point the county manager nor any of the commissioners have gone through the departmental requests to make cuts.

Commissioners will meet again next Monday, April 23 to begin reviewing expenditures by department.

At Monday’s meeting commissioner Bruce Henry commented that many people had received assessments that increased their property value by as much as 21 percent, and therefore, the commission should do all it can to lower taxes.

Commissioner Don Jernigan said he wants to give the employees raises, and to do that, cuts have to be made somewhere.

The digest increased by some $29 million, which County Manager Mike Benton explained was about one-half new growth, and about one-half assessment increases.