County Gets Nice Surprise On Budget Calculations

The Fayette County government ended the 2023 budget year in much better shape than expected.

The Commissioners Court approved a slate of 2023 budget amendments at their meeting last Thursday, Feb. 22, which resulted in a surplus for the budget year. The County was expected to end 2023 with a deficit.

Fayette County Auditor Cindy Havelka said the surplus was partially due to better-than-expected sales tax revenue last year.

“Some departments predicted using more gasoline and gravel, but they did not, some had pieces of equipment they did not purchase,” she said. “Overall, we generated more revenue than we spent.”

Total revenue for the County last year stood at $39,357,455.85. Expenses in 2023 were $38,988,060.57. The general fund performed the best, with a surplus of $2.18 million. The County was expecting the general fund to lose nearly $600,000 last year.

The road and bridge funds also performed better than expected with a surplus of more than $1.1 million. Those funds were expected to end the year with a much smaller surplus of about $330,000.

That puts the County in much better financial shape this year.

Also at last Thursday’s meeting, Commissioners approved the 2023 racial profiling report from the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office. According to the report, deputies conducted 3,638 stops in 2023. The report said deputies knew the race or ethnicity of the person they stopped in just 13 of those cases. The race or ethnicity of the people stopped were as follows:

• Alaskan Native/American Indian - 7

• Asian/Pacific Islander - 276

• Black - 646

• White - 1,413

• Hispanic/Latino - 1,296 

Searches were conducted in 342 of those stops, with contraband discovered in 114 of those searches. Consent was given in 190 searches, and there were 140 probable cause searches.

The results of those traffic stops were as follows:

• Verbal Warning - 1,483

• Written Warning - 400

• Citation - 1,715

• Citation and Arrest - 1

• Arrest - 39 

The report said the Sheriff’s Office received no complains of racial profiling in 2023.

In other business, EMS Director Josh Vandever said Dr. William Loesch is serving as interim medical director for his department. The former medical director, Dr. Mark Ackrell, passed away unexpectedly last month.