Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Quorum court starts budget - Committee lists questions for several county officials

Members of the Nevada County Quorum Courts budget committee have questioned several aspects of the proposed budget for 2006. The committee met Nov. 20 to begin looking over budgets proposed by each office of county government.

The Nevada County Jail roused several questions from committee members.

The jails budget for the current year was in the red early due to the expense of housing a juvenile. The county has no facilities for housing juvenile offenders and one of the four accused in the murder of James Cummings has been held as a juvenile, even though the courts are trying him as an adult. Budget committee members talked about how to handle that situation for the coming year. Theres no way to determine how much longer that particular juvenile will be held by the county nor to predict whether the county will have juvenile offenders in the future.

There were several increases in the budgeted amounts for the jail, according to committee members. Medical treatment, medicines and transportation are the main reasons for the increases.

Nevada County Judge James Roy Brown told committee members that he can appoint a three-person committee to look into several aspects of the jail operations. One of those is the feeding of prisons. Brown said there are some alternatives available while remaining within the requirements of the law.

Budget committee member Bob Cummings said hed been told that detainees were asked what they want to eat each day, and said breakfast seems to be a hot meal with a choice of foods.

I dont have a problem with them eating cereal, Cummings said.

I dont cook breakfast for my kids every morning, said budget committee member Susie Key.

These issues and others will be discussed with Nevada County Sheriff-elect Bobby Carlton before the budget is finalized and presented to the full quorum court.

The budget committee marked several additional points to be discussed with other county officials.