Commissioners pass 2024 budget resolution for Highland County

In a special meeting Friday, Dec. 22, Highland County commissioners Terry Britton, David Daniels and Brad Roades approved the county’s 2024 annual appropriation resolution, with a $14 million general fund budget. 

As previously reported, on Nov. 29, Highland County Auditor Alex Butler submitted to commissioners the certified estimated resources for 2024, which he calculated at $14 million for the county’s general fund. 

According to Britton, the county’s “ask” from all departments was $14.8 million, and through discussions over the past month, they’ve “got that down to $14 million for the general fund.” The non-general fund total is $50,363,728.90, for an overall $64,363,728.90 budgeted for 2024.

“Times have changed a little bit,” Britton said. “The inflation period has, you know, kind of hit us, and it seems like every year our budget does increase a little bit. A lot of that's due to salary increases and that sort of thing. 

“We’ve noticed that some of the contract services and supply line items and those kinds of things, you know, those things have went up, and unfortunately, that's just the nature of the beast.”

Daniels said that the budget includes “allowing for a three-percent increase in wages for county employees.”

Commissioners also invited county ARPA funding coordinator Nicole Oberrecht to share “highlights,” as Britton thanked her for her efforts.

“Nicole has done a great job putting this thing together,” Britton said. “I know she's worked some tireless hours on this. We’ve gone over it a few times, and I think she's done a really good job.”

When the 2023 budget was approved last December, the total general fund budget was set at $13.2 million, and the non-general fund budget was $50,877,274.81. Oberrecht said that the county had “around $12 million in expenditures” for 2023. 

“Like Terry said, when you factor in salary increases, utility costs electric — the electric bills have really busted our budget this year when you've got jails that run 24/7 and a lot of our sewer plants, with pumps running constantly, so we factored that in,” Oberrecht said. “In this year's budget as well, we set up an HR department for the county, so we've taken that into consideration. 

“Also, the commissioners have decided to provide the Visitors Bureau with some additional funding to help offset some of their deficiencies with their lost revenue.”

According to the resolution, $146,500 is budgeted for the Human Resources department, and $48,600 is budgeted for the Visitors Bureau in 2024.

Along with Oberrecht, Britton thanked commission clerks Mary Remsing and Ashleigh Willey, as well as Butler, for their work on the budget.

In other discussion:

• Commissioners voted 3-0 to authorize the execution of a change order from Schindler Elevator Corporation for a previously awarded project. The company is currently working to repair the Highland County Administration Building’s elevator, which has been out of service since October.

According to Daniels, the change order is to account for a “$14,845 additional expense.

“When they started to dismantle the shaft and the mechanicals on there, they found some additional problems that the EPA said they needed to clean out,” Daniels said. “There’s some fluid contamination down in there and some contamination down at the bottom of the pit that's going to require approximately one eight-hour shift on site to get that cleaned out.”

• Commissioners also voted 3-0 to approve a resolution authorizing a transfer from Transfers Out to 4220 Airport Capital Improvement in the amount of $3,101.77.

• As this was anticipated to be the last commission meeting of the year, Roades briefly reflected on his first year in office.

“I just want to thank every one of you,” he said. “I have enjoyed this 12 months, learned an extremely large amount of information, lots of names and thousands of acronyms. Thank you, everybody.”

Butler, who was sworn into office as county auditor in March, agreed.

“For the time I've been here this year, it's been good,” Butler said. “We've had both challenges and opportunities, and regardless of what the day may bring, we do have a good team that works well together. There’s a lot of cooperation and good communication among the offices, and I do believe we're all pulling in the same direction.”

• Commissioners will not hold a regular meeting Dec. 27 or Jan. 3. The 2024 organizational meeting will be held Jan. 8, and commissioners will hold their first regular meeting Jan. 10.