The County Commission’s Budget Committee met last Thursday night to finish preparing a budget to present at their next monthly meeting. The commissioners present, Mark Bishop, John Pippenger, Daren Waters and Greg Brooks, were able to create a proposed budget that includes 50¢/hour raises for county employees as well as a 20% raise in mileage pay while staying within the certified tax rate of $2.18/hundred valuation.

The budget committee asked County Director of Budget & Finance Rachel Rogers to run a copy of the budget replacing raises of 5% of annual salaries with raises of 50¢/hour and were able to gain more than $18,000 for the budget. By starting the raises on October 1, instead of paying retroactively back to the beginning of the budget year in July, another $19,000 was saved.

By agreeing to begin raises October 1, committee members were able to free up enough money in the proposed budget to provide a raise in the mileage rate for county employees. Pippenger suggested the possibility of purchasing a truck for Property Assessor Randy Yates and paying for his gas with the county gas card. Yates has the highest travel expenses, due to the nature of his duties.

Waters said he believed it would be safer in the long run to continue to pay mileage. “What if it blows up?” he asked.

 Mileage reimbursement is currently 35¢ per mile. If the proposed budget is approved, mileage will be raised to 42¢.

Brooks asked about the pay rate for detectives in the sheriff’s department. Currently Dennis Waters is serving as a detective but is being paid through the deputy line item. Bishop said it was up to Sheriff Davis to decide how to spend his budget.

Also included in the proposed budget is the purchase of user agreements with NetNanny, and internet filtering service. Commissioners look to have computers donated to the libraries is Benton and Ducktown in order to provide access to county residents.