Benton County Officials Eye New Positions, Equipment

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

— Benton County officials will examine requests for new positions and capital purchases today as work on the 2014 budget continues.

The Finance Committee of the Quorum Court will resume its consideration of the county’s budget after the panel’s regular monthly finance meeting set for 5:30 p.m. in the Quorum Courtroom of the County Administration Building. 215 E. Central Ave. in Bentonville.

At A Glance

Ballot Issue

The Benton County Quorum Court’s Finance Committee will consider the purchase of software for the Election Commission. The Election Commission is asking for permission to buy a software program to allow the county to create its own ballot for elections rather than pay an outside company to do that work. The software will cost about $60,000 and election officials estimate the savings from doing the work in-house will more than pay for that cost.

Source: Staff Report

Kurt Moore, justice of the peace for District 13, said the committee will have to set priorities among $378,000 in new personnel requests, $2.2million in capital equipment requests and raises for existing employees.

“The fewer new people we hire the more we can devote to raises,” Moore said. “If we do the entire slate of requests, then the raises are probably going to stay at 4 percent. If we could cut it in half, we can consider increasing the pool of money available for the raises.”

Sarah Daniels, county comptroller, has told justices of the peace revenue for 2014 is expected to top $47 million. Operating costs are projected at $45 million, leaving about $2.1 million in revenue. The county’s elected officials made budget cuts with a goal of giving county employees a 7 percent raise for 2014, which would cost about $2.1 million. Department heads and elected officials also have submitted capital equipment requests of about $2.2 million and requests for new personnel that would cost about $378,000.

At their most recent meeting, the justices of the peace agreed to proceed with a plan to provide money for a 1 percent cost-of-living increase and a pool of money for merit raises equal to the cost of a 3 percent raise. Raises for individual employees would be capped at 7 percent. Those raises would cost the county about $1.12 million, according to Daniels. The committee also voted to give elected officials raises in line with a 2012 resolution. The county judge and sheriff would see their salaries increase from $83,731 to $88,054. The county clerk, circuit clerk, treasurer, collector and assessor would see their salaries increase from $78,811 to $81,901. The coroner will see his salary increase from $67,655 to $75,098 under a separate motion since the Quorum Court has increased his pay beyond what was set out in 2012.

With the pay raises and increases for elected officials pay, Daniels said, the county has about $1.05 million in projected revenue remaining for other personnel and capital requests.

Moore said he thinks the justices of the peace need to look at the requests with an eye toward deciding which are the most pressing and which might be delayed.

“I’m going to push hard to make sure we buy the things that are needed at the first of the year,” Moore said. “I’m seeing an awful lot of vehicles in the capital and I’m kind of skeptical about the need for those. I’m going to be less inclined to approve vehicles than tech items or repairs.”

County Judge Bob Clinard said some of the new positions and reorganizations of the county’s Planning and Environmental Department and the Road Department are needed and he will make the case to have them approved in the 2014 budget. John Sudduth, county general services administrator, said the current Planning and Environmental Department will be designated the Benton County Development Department with three separate divisions — one for planning, one for building inspection and safety and one for environmental. Sudduth said two new employees will be needed for the building division under the reorganization plan. Clinard said the changes are needed to bring the county into compliance with state laws and county ordinances and to provide the expertise needed to oversee the responsibilities of each of the three areas.

“We are going to be ready to stand up and talk about and explain our reasoning for these departments,” Clinard said. “The Planning Department now has three different sets of training rules and expertise under it. It’s not practical and it never was practical to try and have one person do all three of those things.”

The Road Department reorganization is aimed at putting more people in the field working on county roads and bridges, Clinard said. Some supervisory position will be deleted and others changed to more hands-on supervision, Clinard said.

“We plan on having fewer upper management jobs and having more people out on the roads working.” Clinard said.

Barry Moehring, justice of the peace for District 15, said he’s still studying the reorganizations, new personnel requests and capital requests with a goal of getting them into some sort of priority order. He said he expects the county to dip into its reserves to fund some of the capital requests.

“The larger issue is we have more requests than we have money available,” Moehring said. “If you add up all of the requests it’s about $5 million. We need to find the right balance between raises, reorganizations and capital and the appropriate amount to spend out of our reserve.”