Benton County officials get budget preview

BENTONVILLE -- Benton County officials expect to have about $51.6 million in revenue for the general fund and road fund next year to cover the county's expenses.

Brenda Guenther, comptroller, gave the county's Budget Committee a brief look at preliminary projections for revenue and expenses Monday when the panel met to begin reviewing departmental requests for next year's budget. The committee will hear directly from departments that exceed the target of keeping 2017 expenses within 2 percent of this year's budgets. At Monday's meeting the justices of the peace discussed requests from the Coroner's Office; the county's Information Technology Department; the Cooperative Extension Service, the Health Department, the Fire Services; the Emergency Services; and reviewed the county's emergency medical services requests for 2017.

Correction

A previous version of this story misstated the amount of revenue officials expect to have for the general fund and road fund. The error has been corrected.

What’s next

Benton County’s justices of the peace will continue working on the county’s 2017 budget at 6 p.m. tonight when the county’s Budget Committee meets in the Quorum Courtroom in the County Administration Building, 215 E. Central Ave. in Bentonville.

Source: Staff report

Guenther said the county's revenue for the general and road funds, which are budgeted by the Quorum Court, should be about $54 million. She said expenses for those funds are now running at about $56.6 million. The general and road funds pay for the county judge's office, the sheriff and jail and road department and some other offices. Other offices, including the Assessor, Collector and Circuit Clerk, are "commissioned" accounts, meaning they have their own sources of revenue that cover most of their costs.

Barry Moehring, justice of the peace for District 15, asked Guenther to provide information from past years on the general and road funds.

"Do we have trend lines?" Moehring asked. "I'd kind of like to know what those trend lines are like over the past few years."

Guenther said she will provide that information, adding that 2017 will show a jump in property tax revenue of about $1.2 million after this year's countywide property reappraisal.

Among the costs the justices of the peace will be considering are requests for 21 new employees, along with some requests for pay increases and departmental reorganizations that will result in increased costs. Barb Ludwig, the county's human resources director, said those cost are now estimated at be just under $2 million for the general fund with another $300,000 being charged to other funds. The county's Personnel Committee reviewed some of those requests Oct. 13 and will complete its review and rank the requests when the panel meets again on Oct. 25.

Marshal Watson, the county's emergency services administrator, also briefed the justices of the peace on the projected costs to provide rural ambulance service in 2017. The county budgeted about $1,725,000 this year and that is expected to increase to about $1,847,000 for 2017. Watson said the bulk of the increase is in the request from Pea Ridge, which is raising the amount it is seeking from about $120,000 to about $190,000, an increase of about 57 percent. Watson said he has questioned the increase and asked the city for more details on their expenses.

Overall, Watson said, the service seems to have stabilized this year after the county had to find a service provider to replace the ambulance service for the area east of Lowell that had been provided by the city of Springdale. An agreement with Mercy Health Systems increased the cost from the $71,800 Springdale had requested for 2015 to about $466,000 this year. Watson said the amount will be the same in 2017.

"My perception is we've hit that proverbial glass ceiling where most of the providers feel they're receiving a reasonable compensation for their services," Watson said.

Guenther said the county is expecting to receive about $875,000 from a county wide millage dedicated to paying for rural ambulance service and another $257,000 from a voluntary millage paid by county residents. That leaves the Quorum Court to appropriate about $729,999 to make up the full cost of the service.

NW News on 10/18/2016

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