Budgets for both offices were dissected line item by line item as the Court discussed with each office what the money would be used for.
Tony Eversole, the Perry County Sheriff’s Office chief deputy gave the monthly sheriff’s report, saying that deputies answered 4,000 calls, including 700 assistance calls to help the state police, for example.
The Office completed approximately 200 motorist assists and traveled approximately 360,000 miles among the department.
He said this year was the first year the department used the mobile tax unit, and said it has been a great success.
“To date, it’s round about $2 million that we’ve collected over there,” Eversole said. “Everybody that walks in is tickled to death with it.”
Sheriff Les Burgett said the mobile unit has been a great help in tax collection because it provides more parking and is more accessible to people who are not able to walk up stairs easily, which is what they have to do in the courthouse.
“If there’s somebody that comes up there that can’t even get out of their car, the girls can just step out there and get it and bring it in and pay and take their receipt out there to them,” Burgett said.
After this update, Deputy Jack Duff read the Sheriff’s Office budget line by line for the court. Among the things mentioned on the budget were the loss of Perry County Park patrol and the lack of raises for the department in 2011.
Judge-Executive Denny Ray Noble said the sheriff’s budget has gone up $200,000 every year for the last couple of years. Burgett, however, said these increases were because of park patrol, overtime and gas costs among others.
Noble implied their budget should not have increased because they were able to buy new vehicles for deputies recently, which Burgett said were necessary because vehicles for the department receive a lot of wear and tear because they have to drive all over the state to transport prisoners and all over the county to work.
Duff said the commission on taxes collected $517,500 in 2010, and this is mostly what the Sheriff’s Office uses to run its office, Burgett added.
“That makes up most of our monies,” Burgett said. “Very little fees comes through our office.”
Burgett added that the office receives money from state advancement loans to cover their costs throughout the year until they get commission taxes and are able to pay those loans back. Next year’s estimated loan is $190,000.
“We run on credit all year long, then if we have some extra money at the end of the year, we do these extra things,” Burgett said.
Duff said a deputy is posted in Perry County Central High School for free, and Noble complained this was not fair since the court had to pay for park patrol.
“You all are telling us that you can’t secure the park, but you can secure down there (PCC) and them not charge you anything, but we have to pay?” Noble asked.
Burgett contended that it only takes one deputy to patrol the high school, but several to patrol the park, and the sheriff’s office simply doesn’t have the manpower or money to spare.
“We want to do the park just like we’ve been doing it, we just don’t have the finances,” Burgett said.
Noble also said the office continues to add amendments to their budget at the last minute, something he said could easily be fixed. Burgett said this would be difficult because they oftentimes don’t know how much money they will have to spend until the last two months of the year when taxes are collected.
“You know what you’re going to spend in the eleventh month,” Noble said. “You know where you’re at.”
Noble recommended the court remove money budgeted to buy and repair vehicles from the budget, and give the Sheriff’s Office $50,000 to start the year.
The court approved this measure with out-going magistrate Bubby Combs opposed.
Haven King, Perry County Clerk, read the amended budget for his office first, saying there had been three changes.
The changes were: raising the clerk’s salary to $81,540.38, moving $7,000 budgeted for overtime pay to deputies from overtime pay into their regular salaries, paying a bill for the deed room totaling $50,000 with leftover coal severance money from 2010, returning almost $100,000 in excess fees to the Fiscal Court and receiving a grant of $12,961 for microfilming.
The amended 2010 budget was approved by the court, as was the 2011 budget for the clerk’s office.
King also mentioned to the court that $171,000 to $177,000 had been given to the clerk’s office by the federal government to purchase new voting machines.
The new machines would be paper ballot scanners, in which voters fill out a paper card that will then be fed into a machine with tallies the votes. The identity of the voter will not be revealed. King said 80 counties in Kentucky are already using these machines, with Jefferson County being the only county exclusively using this machine.
He said the government had given his office enough money to purchase one machine per precinct, but suggested the court buy two extra machines as a back-up plan.
The court approved the purchase of the new voting machines, and the purchase of two extra machines.
In other business, the court adopted several roads into the county road plan on their second reading. Noble also shared data showing that in 2008 the court adopted 28 roads into the road plan, 45 in 2009 and 67 in 2010, something he said was good for the 911 service because it made homes more accessible.
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