The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors approved a 2016 Fiscal Year budget that will not require a tax increase Tuesday.
That is not to say that all departments will be funded at this year’s level, however. The sheriff’s department and adult detention is budgeted for a combined increase of $272,000. The county road department, meanwhile, will see roughly $50,000 in decreased funding while juvenile detention will see its funds fall by $102,000 when compared to the current year.
County administrator Ralph Billingsley said none of the budget changes in those areas are a result of major additions or subtractions.
“There are a few things that show up in the sheriff’s department,” Billingsley said. “It’s not just one thing, but several things. Mostly, its an increase in hours and a lot of that is due to the fact that we’ll be operating the shooting range. Some of it has to do with patrol car purchases. A while back, we got into a situation where we hadn’t replaced cars. As a result, we were spending a lot more on maintenance and having cars down. So we made the decision to start replacing those older, high-mileage cars…what we’re seeing is that the price of those cars is going up and you see that in the budget.”
Billingsley said the increase in the adult detention budget is also attributed to a variety of things. “Food costs are going up and we also had to replace two air-conditioning units. Really, a lot of it is just miscellaneous expenses. There are no big-ticket additions.”
On the other end of the equation, the 2016 budget for juvenile detention will be appreciably lower.
“Really, that’s more an indication of some capital improvements we had on those facilities this year,” Billingsley said. “What you see in the 2016 budget is really back to where it normally is.”
Billingsley said the $50,000 cut in the road department budget reflects the dramatic fall in diesel fuel prices.
The county’s budget includes $40,935,403 in expenses against $39,864,050 in revenues.
Last year’s budget included $42,206,522 in expenses.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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