County Budget Unveiled

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

A 2010-11 General Fund budget recommended by County Manager Cary McSwain is almost 5 percent lower than this year’s budget and contains no hike in the tax rate.

McSwain presented the budget during the Monday meeting of the Moore County Board of Commissioners. The board officially accepted the budget but will not adopt the document until the June 7 meeting, following a series of budget work sessions.

The budget recommendation reduces the public schools budget by 3 percent to $25.5 million for current expenses and $711,932 for capital outlay. It cuts the Sandhills Community College budget by 3 percent to $4 million.

No raises are proposed for county employees, and McSwain recommends elimination of funding for seven vacant positions in several departments. He also recommends reduction of four other positions but does not specify which jobs.

The commissioners are expected to adjust the budget in a series of work sessions, first of which is scheduled Thursday at 5 p.m. They will hold the budget hearing during the regular May 17 meeting.

McSwain and his budget team were praised and thanked for their hard work.

“It’s not a fun process. It’s tough,” said Chairman Tim Lea.

In other business the board voted 4-1 to remove the government center from the contract bidding process underway for a detention center/public safety complex planned for a 21-acre tract adjacent to the county jail in downtown Carthage. Lea cast the dissenting vote.

The board also appointed Laura Williams as clerk, succeeding Megan Owrey Garner, who resigned in order to accept the grant writing position with the Department of Public Works.

Details will appear in the print version of The Pilot.

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Steve 3 years ago

No were near enough cuts.

RmeMP 3 years ago

I am a little confused here; if the board accepted the budget, then why does it say, "The commissioners are expected to adjust the budget in a series of work sessions"?

So, they in fact, didn't actually accept the budget? I wonder what these "adjustments" will include?

Please help me to understand if I am missing something, or if this is standard procedure for a county budget unveiling.

CSmithson 3 years ago

@rmemp

The Manager puts the budget together and recommends it to the board. Now that the budget is in the board's hands, they must hold hearing(s) on it and can adjust (amend) it if they feel it is necessary. I suppose if they thought the proposed budget was way off, they wouldn't "accept" it and would send the manager back to the drawing board.

Local governments have until the end of June to adopt their budgets. The governing body is required to hold a hearing and vote to officially adopt the budget ordinance. One of the difficulties of local government(LG) budget adoption is the fact that a lot of funds come from the state level. While LG's have to adopt a budget by the end of June, the NC Legislature does not have such constraints. LG's must estimate or rely on assurances from state officials that the State budget includes the funds LG's are expecting.

RmeMP 3 years ago

@CSmithson Thank you for making somewhat sense of this article for me. So, by "accepting" the proposed budget, they do so in "general"; giving themselves basically a month to amend whats needed, instead of having to start from scratch - OK.

Hopefully we will get to see what these amendments are, via a followup story from The Pilot ;)