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County budget set: $217.7 million Veterans, health, watermaster will get additions, but historical society won't By DANI DODGE If the Jackson County budget hearings had a theme this year, it would have been "Ask and Ye Shall Receive." Veterans, their garrison caps festooned with badges and medals, asked for another staff person in the county's veterans' assistance office; $30,352 later, consider it done. People concerned about the dwindling water resources in a drought year asked for more help in the water master's office; $37,117, and it was so. The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce asked for $4,500. They didn't even bother to show up at the budget hearing to explain why they needed the money. Yet, they got it. On Thursday, the Jackson County Budget Committee approved the county's $217.7 million budget for 2001-02. Granted it wasn't totally a free-for-all. The county's historical societies wanted $2.1 million and got just the same allocation as last year: $1.4 million. In a change from earlier recommendations, the county clerk got money for voter pamphlets for all four of the elections in the fiscal year, but didn't get the extra clerk she requested. And Commissioner Ric Holt didn't get the raise he thought commissioners deserved - he suggested they should get a 10 percent cut of the money they bring into the county. The lay members of the budget committee suggested a 4 percent raise, but Commissioner Jack Walker countered they should get 3.7 percent, like all the non-elected management staff at the county. "I have no qualms with 3.7 percent," Holt said. "Although I happen to think we are worth even more, but from a political nature, which we have to look at, (3.7) may be astute. I myself have been able to exceed the salary (with money brought into the county) many, many times over ... but I'll yield to the floor." After Holt's statement, the other five members of the Budget Committee agreed to 4 percent raises. Holt abstained, later saying he thought it should have been more, but wanted to leave it up to the others. The Budget Committee added three nurses to the Health and Human Services Department. They put $2.8 million into remodeling an old Safeway building into a home for parole and probation as well as a new space for the county's elections office. And they devoted $3.1 million to buy down debts on the county's retirement plans. County Budget Committee members also decided to increase a "rainy day fund" from $200,000 to $2 million, in addition to the county's $2.2 million reserve fund, for unknown costs like labor negotiations and lawsuits. "We don't know what the economic climate will be and we don't know what power cost fluctuations will bring," said committee member Tim Alford. "I would hate to see us get in a position where we have no wiggle room and have to start making cuts." Most of the county's departments, though, simply got modest increases of 4 percent based on inflation. At the end of the budget session Thursday, most of the Budget Committee members noted how much easier it was to do a budget when the county isn't looking at cuts as it has for the last five or six years. New federal timber replacement funds, approved by Congress last year, boosted the county's budget by more than $6 million. The funds will continue for five more years. The county also had a $5 million "rainy day fund" they could use to do things like put $430,000 towards engineering costs to help complete the Bear Creek Greenway and $100,000 to help make the Jackson County Expo amphitheater a reality. They even put $26,000 into a Meals on Wheels program. "Most of us won't walk out with wounds we didn't have before," joked Commissioner Sue Kupillas. Reach reporter Dani Dodge at 776-4471, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.