Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Committee Wades Through Budget Items

Since the regular meeting of the Nevada County Quorum Court, JPs have involved with the budget process have met three times.

JPs Danny Miller, John Henderson and Curtis Lee Johnson, along with Nevada County Judge James Roy Brown, met Tuesday, November 14, Thursday, November 16, and again on Monday, November 20, to look at the 2001 budgets.

During the initial meeting of the budget committee, Judge Brown informed JPs the 2001 budgets will show a 3% pay increase for all county employees.

Budgets, as presented to the committee, show requests for $1,485,0000. The county can spend $1.56 million, which is 90% of its anticipated revenue of $1.74 million in county general.

Tuesday's meeting involved a preliminary examination of the budgets by the group with a few of the budgets gaining the approval of the committee.

Thursday's meeting took longer as the committee met with several office holders to discuss budget requests.

During the second meeting, Nevada County Sheriff Steve Otwell told JPs of his budget request for a new vehicle by his department.

Otwell told JPs he was requested a four-wheel-drive extended cab truck for his office instead of the usual Ford Crown Victoria police package.

Sheriff Otwell told the committee the vehicle will be better suited to work on county roads as well as in bad weather. He said pickups being used by other sheriff's offices in the state are having less problems and incurring less expenses.

Otwell told JPs the vehicle will also assist in stopping wide loads, which are reported to run other cars off the highways.

He said a white car, usually recognized as a police car, doesn't receive the same treatment as anyone else in a different type or color of vehicle.

Under the current program, the sheriff's office purchases a used vehicle from the county judge's office one year and purchases a new vehicle the next year.

Brown sold his car to Otwell's office this year, which was originally purchased from county general, road and bridge and the solid waste budgets.

Brown told JPs he had waited too late to order a Ford Crown Victoria from the state, which receives police packages at a reduced rate and has purchased a Dodge Durango, which is a four-door four-wheel-drive utility vehicle (SUV).

He told the committee the vehicle will be better equipped to handle his work load on the county's rural roads and during inclement weather.

Brown said he had checked with Otwell before purchasing the Durango to see if the vehicle would work with the sheriff's office and possibly the K9 unit.

Otwell's request for a pickup would give his department two newer off road vehicles to use by 2002. The sheriff's office currently has an early 1980's model four-wheel-drive.

Brown said the purchase of the pickup for Otwell's department made sense to him.

He told the committee the vehicle would have more room inside and could benefit the county in a few years with its resell value. In addition he stated it could be of value to road and bridge when the sheriff's office retired the vehicle.

Committee members met with Nevada County Tax Assessor Pam Box, Coroner Tommy Glass, Economic Director Jon Chadwell, Library board member Mary Martin, Municipal Judge Gene Hale and his deputy, Michele Glass.

Box had her budget reduced in some areas due to the fact she was making the same request as the previous two years on some line items and had not spent that much.

She did have an approval for a second telephone line. She has also requested a copier and fax machine.

The second telephone line will be used for connecting her computer with the state to download information and update the computer program and system. It will also be used as a fax line.

Glass reduced his budget in several areas for the same reason as Box. The committee also approved his budget due to increased work load added by the state.

His budget shows the purchase of a laptop computer to take care of the added work load and provide a data base of records for the coroner's office from previous years.

Hale's municipal court budget will show some funding for part-time help until his computer system is updated.Part of the update in Hale's office will be the adding of civil and small claim functions to the computer program.

Hale and Glass said the workload had doubled and tripled during 2000 in that office.

Martin discussed the library's budget for 2001 in which $35,000 has been requested. This includes a raise for the librarian, the only paid employee in the library.

She was informed by the committee the county had problems with funding the library at this time beyond what is produced by the library millage, which is about $18,000 yearly.

Judge Brown told Martin he was worried how the county could fund the new facility which will be built in the next few years on the current tax receipts.

Brown told Martin the city of Prescott had provided additional funding of $10,000 in 1999, but had yet to do so in 2000. He said he would check to see if the city could help pay part of the budget for 2000 and 2001.

Committee members were asked by Chadwell to increase the Prescott-Nevada County Economic Office (EDO) budget to $35,000 in 2001 from $25,000.

Chadwell told the committee the additional funding was needed for research and increased mailing in hopes of attracting new industry in 2001 to the county.

He informed the committee the city of Prescott had been funding the office $30,000 yearly in addition to paying other office expenses.

Chadwell told the committee the city currently pays his health insurance, provides the building, pays the utilities and provides the funding for the office's computer and equipment expenses.

Chadwell told committee members about a third of the office's expenses were being picked up by the city at this time.

He said the EDO would be requesting $35,000 from the city for 20001.

Chadwell told the committee he understood the financial crunch the county faced at this time and if they could only fund $30,000 he would hold no grudges.

"We'll still work as hard for the county next year as we have the past," Chadwell told committee members.

The third meeting of the committee was to be Monday, November 20, at 5:00 p.m.