New County Budget Lower, But More for Law Enforcement

Fayette County Commissioners officially proposed the 2021 County Budget. Overall spending in the budget came in at $25,189,671. That’s slightly down from $25,384,052 in spending budgeted last year.

On the revenue side, the County expects to bring in $25,382,176. That’s up over a half million from last year’s budgeted revenue of $24,821,280. The most recent year with actual revenue numbers available was 2019. That year, the County collected $24,216,451.

Sales tax revenue appears to be holding steady for the moment. Property values increased slightly across Fayette County this year. So property tax revenue for the County should increase slightly (as long as property owners can afford to pay those taxes). But other sources of revenue from the County are down significantly due to the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. Fines and court fees, for example, are down $250,000 so far this year.

According to the proposed budget, most Fayette County employees will not get a raise this year. Fayette County Judge Joe Weber said Commissioners decided against an overall raise for employees due to economic uncertainty of the ongoing crisis.

Instead of raises, Commissioners decided to give employees an additional benefit this year – dental coverage.

“I think it will be good, particularly at a time when we’re not able to offer an overall salary increase,” Weber said.

The dental benefits will come at no cost to the employees, but employees will have to pay if they wish to add their spouses or children to the plan. The dental plan will cost the County about $58,000 in 2021.

The plan includes two free oral exams and cleanings a year. Many procedures are covered 100 percent with a $50 deductible. Major procedures like crowns and root canals are covered at 50 percent.

“A lot of people go to the doctor and find out too late that if they had healthy teeth, it takes care of a lot of other issues,” said Pct. 3 Commissioner Harvey Berckenhoff.

County Auditor Kathy Kleiber said employees previously had access to a few dental benefits through the county employee health insurance package. However, not many employees took advantage of them due to waiting periods and limited benefits associated with the old plan.

Some employees in the Sheriff’s Office will get raises this year. Specifically, supervisors and investigators will get raises ranging from $0.50 to $0.70 per hour. The County’s two drug interdiction officers will get five and 10 percent raises. That’s a lot less than what Sheriff Keith Korenek originally requested for those two officers.

Under the plan submitted to the Commissioners Court at an April 23 meeting, the salary of one drug officer would have nearly doubled from $48,000 to $94,000 annually. The other drug officer would have seen his salary rise from roughly $47,000 to $75,000 annually. The Sheriff wanted to pay for those raises using the cash and proceeds of property seized by those two officers during their duties, which mostly involves patrolling Interstate 10 for drug traffickers.

Commissioners instead decided to pay for the more modest raises out of the County general fund, like all other salaries. They instructed the Sheriff’s Office to use its forfeiture funds on equipment and training instead.

The raises for officers were part of a big spending package for the Sheriff’s Office in 2021. Other items Commissioners approved included two new police 4x4 SUVs at a cost of $38,995.65 each, along with new equipment for both vehicles estimated at $16,000, two new full-time deputy positions at a total cost of $100,000 for salaries and benefits and an additional drug interdiction officer at a cost of $60,000 annually. All jailers will receive a two percent pay raise, and jail supervisors will get a five percent pay increase. The 911 dispatch supervisor will get a $0.70 per hour raise, and 10 dispatchers will be promoted from Dispatcher IV to Dispatcher V, which comes with a $600 annual raise for each.

“We will not be defunding our police,” Weber said at the meeting, referring to a slogan associated with some parts of the Black Lives Matter protest movement.

Overall funding for the Sheriff’s Office will go up about $400,000, or 13 percent.

Funding for the Fayette County EMS Department, historically the most expensive department in the County budget, will go from $3,370,769 budgeted for this year to $3,513,282 next year, an increase of about 4.2 percent. Most of that will go toward remounting two ambulances and upgrading equipment.

Last year, the Commissioners established an emergency reserve fund and set aside $600,000. This year, Commissioners did not set aside any money for the reserve fund. That allowed for the extra spending in the EMS Department and Sheriff’s Office while keeping the overall budget slightly down. Kleiber said the proposed budget for next year does not include any spending from the reserve fund. All of the reserve funds set aside last year remain available in case of an emergency.