The Henderson County Commission unanimously approved the county’s 2009-2010 fiscal year budget Monday night, but put protections in place to try to prevent running out of money as the year goes on. Commissioners passed the budget with few questions, largely because aside from subtle differences, it was basically the same budget commissioners passed last year. “This is basically the same budget we had for last year,” Budget Committee Chairman Terry Stewart said. “We’ve had to make some cuts, and allow for increases in other expenses.” As previously reported, the budget does not contain any raises for county employees for the budget year. Stewart and Finance Director Ann Grant called commissioners’ attention to an $89,000 shortfall in the current budget, noting that the money to cover the shortfall will be pulled from undesignated and debt service funds. After the meeting Grant explained that that fund is primarily designed to “even out” the collection of tax money used to pay county debts that were issued on an increasing payment schedule. “Those payments go up a certain amount each year and that fund is in place to allow for those increases,” Grant said. Which means, like Commissioner Gary Stewart said, the county has to be careful when pulling money from that fund. “We have to keep a closer eye on expenditures. We know our revenues are not coming in like they normally do and we have to prepare for that to prevent dipping into this fund again next year,” Stewart said. With that in mind, the budget committee recommended and the commission passed a resolution prohibiting departments covered under the general fund from spending more than one-twelfth of their annual budget in a 30-day period without prior approval from the budget committee. “That way we won’t have anyone spending their entire budget by Fall and going over budget when something comes up in the Spring,” Stewart said.
