Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Elected officials warned: Watch budges or else

Elected officials will have to keep a closer watch on their budgets from now on.

The Nevada County Quorum Court, in its March meeting, agreed is a department is over budget no bills will be paid until the elected official comes before the Court and explains the situation.

Nevada County Judge James Roy Brown said each department gets a monthly printout showing its budget. For them to keep up better may require printing out more reports, he added, and the Nevada County Clerk's Office would have to keep up with it.

But, he continued, this may be a way to get the elected officials to keep up with their budgets better. "I don't know what would happen if the Court refused to appropriate money for bills."

"The Quorum Court is still the governing body in the county," said Arval Mason, justice of the peace, "and controls the purse strings. Last year we had departments go over budget and not bother to come to the Court to explain."

Other members of the Court agreed, and voted no bills will be paid if a department is over budget until the elected official comes before the Court.

Brown said the auditors have been saying this needs to be done as well. Each year the Court has to transfer money from different budgets to balance everything out. He added there are times when unexpected expenses occur.

At the February meeting a committee was formed to look into the prospect of a countywide body pickup for the coroner's office. Susie Key said the committee agreed the Court didn't seem to want to do anything and decided not to bother pursuing the matter.

Brown said the Court needed to make appropriations for 2004 expenditures, with the exception of the Prescott-Nevada County Library. These included money to repair the emergency sirens across the county.

Brown said 28 of the 37 sirens have been checked and are now operating, but it will take more money to get the rest repaired.

Money had to be appropriated for the repair of a vehicle for the Nevada County Sheriff's Office, though some of the damage was covered by insurance.

Appropriations were also made for the Municipal Court, the Nevada County Health Unit and for last year's elections.

Jim Cross, in his role as the county's emergency preparedness director, said the county received $88,000 in grants from the Office of Domestic Preparedness through the Department of Homeland Security. These funds are to be used to purchase new AWIN radios for all emergency personnel. This includes the NCHU, Nevada County Rescue Unit, NCSO and the county's road department.

In all, he said, 42 new VHF radios will be bought for fire departments, with 12 purchased for the NCSO. In addition, gas masks will be bought for all officers, firemen and emergency management personnel.

"We could be looking at the same amount of money for 2005," Cross said. "It's a way to buy equipment we haven't been able to afford in the past."

The new radios, he said, will be digital. Currently, all emergency and law enforcement agencies in the sate are going to the new digital format, getting away from analog radios.

Carolyn Steed, Circuit Clerk, said she's made four payments on a copier in her department. She asked the Court to allow her to pay it off as the company holding the lease keeps coming up with different charges almost every month. The Court agreed and appropriated $5,434.

Carl Ray, post commander of the Veterans of Foreign War, said former Rep. Sandra Rodgers initiated a grant to buy a van to shuttle veterans to and from the VA hospitals in the state.

The van is for several counties in the area, but only Hempstead and Clark counties put up their share of the necessary funds for it. This means the van won't stop in counties that didn't pay and veterans will have to go to either Hope or Arkadelphia to catch a ride.

He asked the Court to appropriate $965.80 for Nevada County's share so the van would stop at Exit 44 for local veterans. The Court agreed.

Brown said the amount of trash being picked on Mondays has grown to the point where county crews are having trouble getting it all in by the end of the day. He said some routes will be changed from Monday to Wednesday to help alleviate the burden on the crews.

Letters, he said, will be mailed to all residents affected by the change. In all about 120 households will be affected.