Following an informational meeting on Nov. 15, the Lincoln County Budget Advisory Committee’s work is complete and the county commissioners have until Dec. 17 to approve the budget for fiscal year 2013.
According to documents provided at the meeting, the committee’s recommended budget is $10,259,822 for 2013. The amount is an increase of $169,716 or 1.68 percent over last year’s budget.
The budget committee has agreed upon a 1.75 percent increase in salaries for non-union county employees [which is reflected in the above expenditures], but a contract for union employees hasn’t yet been ratified and is not shown in the budget, said County Administrator John O’Connell at the Nov. 15 meeting.
Estimated revenues for FY2013 are $1,316,325, an increase of $27,407 or 2.13 percent over last year’s revenues, according to the provides documents.
“Revenues are our best guess based on experience and the environment we’re in. I don’t think this year we’re expecting anyone to rush and throw money at us,” O’Connell said.
Recycling revenue is the “squishiest number, the rest are pretty solid,” O’Connell said.
Based on the recommended expenditures and the estimated revenues, $8,943,497 would be required to be raised by Lincoln County towns if the recommended budget is approved, an increase of $142,309, or 1.62 percent.
According to O’Connell, “that money can be derived from…two places. Primarily it’s from the taxpayers and the only other thing that will reduce that figure is surplus,” which the county usually has at the end of the year.
The surplus balance from 2011 applied against taxes in 2012 was $539,999.27, according to Deborah Tibbetts, the Deputy Administrator of Administrative Services, in a phone conversation Nov. 16.
The commissioners could also decide to make cuts to the recommended expenditures, O’Connell said.
In a phone conversation on Nov. 16, advisory committee chairman Ed Polewarczyk said, “The current commissioners, in my opinion, have made every attempt to follow the recommendation of the budget committee. …I don’t recall any significant changes in the last two years from our recommendations.”
