A new budget to run county offices for the next fiscal year is moving closer to completion. Bill Pickett has the story…
The Vermilion County Board’s Finance and Personnel Committee heard the last budget requests from officeholders during a meeting tonight (Tuesday evening).
Committee chairman Jerry Hawker says the cooperation from officeholders and department heads has been fantastic…
{AUDIO: “Several of the departments have been able to reduce the expense on the General Fund and transfer that into some of their special funds that they have. Some of them are carrying a revenue balance and were able to reduce that. So, less expense on the property tax – and that’s what I’m after.”}
Hawker says the tentative numbers currently being proposed show a higher levy for next year…
{AUDIO: “We’re looking at a tentative levy increase between 500 (thousand) and a million dollars, depending on which tentative worksheet you look at. But that is based on the EAV increase. So we’re actually looking at a decrease in the property tax rate.”}
One request for additional funding came from the Vermilion County Health Department. Administrator Dr. Danso Odi (standing on right above) noted his department has just begun a new sexually transmitted illness (STI) clinic…
{AUDIO: “We don’t want to be, kind of, diving into reserves and what-not. So, we want to make sure that – we’re starting a brand new clinic. We don’t even know what’s going to happen next month, or next two months. Whether that clinic is going to have a lot of people coming in or less people. So we just want to make sure that we have extra cushions. And we did ask for that money last year.”}
The Finance and Personnel Committee approved the Health Department’s request for an additional $40-thousand dollars.
Vermilion County Supervisor of Assessments Nathan Byram says it will probably be October before a tentative tax levy can be determined.
