{"id":19979,"date":"2019-11-07T11:43:34","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T18:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=61372"},"modified":"2019-11-07T11:43:34","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T18:43:34","slug":"county-commissioners-hear-budget-rebuttals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/county-commissioners-hear-budget-rebuttals\/","title":{"rendered":"County commissioners hear budget rebuttals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The Board of Grand County Commissioners heard budget rebuttals from the sheriff’s office, the assessor’s office and Grand County EMS.<\/strong>
McKenna Harford \/ mharford@skyhinews.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Three county departments appeared for contentious budget rebuttal hearings Monday at the Grand County Administration Building that added just over $100,000 in expenditures for 2020.<\/p>\n

The Board of County Commissioners held budget hearings from Oct. 7-9, and department heads were given the chance to appeal to the board before final approval of the 2020 budget in December.<\/p>\n

The first department that appealed to the commissioners was the Grand County Sheriff\u2019s Office, which returned to ask for funding for new vehicles next year. Originally the commissioners\u2019 had discussed devoting $165,000 to vehicles for the sheriff\u2019s office in 2020, but in later budget discussions, all vehicle budgets were reduced to zero.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did it to be consistent and have every department delay (new vehicle purchases) by a year because of the capitol building needs that we\u2019re facing,\u201d Commissioner Rich Cimino said.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Brett Schroetlin presented another option to commissioners for a lease-purchase agreement for five vehicles that would cost roughly $56,000 for five years and then allow the department to purchase the vehicles for $1. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf I don\u2019t have the vehicles I need, then I can\u2019t respond to calls, and I\u2019m going to be forced to make some tough decisions with you folks as far as what calls in Grand County we would actually respond too, and I don\u2019t think that you and I want to have that discussion,\u201d Schroetlin said. <\/p>\n

Commissioner Kris Manguso felt the lease-purchase agreement was not a smart option for the county because of the higher expense in the long run. She said she felt the sheriff\u2019s current fleet of vehicles doesn\u2019t need new cars.<\/p>\n

However, Commissioners Cimino and Merrit Linke agreed it was a good compromise to reduce the upfront cost and give the sheriff\u2019s office the vehicles it needs. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would say at this current date and time, it looks the lease is the more financially wise way to go,\u201d Cimino said.<\/p>\n

Following the sheriff\u2019s office, County Assessor Tom Weydert spoke on behalf of his staff, who he argued are currently underpaid and deserve a raise next year. He noted that based on a 2017 pay plan, his employees were several years behind what they should be getting paid. <\/p>\n

The office also has an open position that hasn\u2019t been filled for months and the remaining staff have taken on those responsibilities in the meantime, he added. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow we are at two years of (salaries) being frozen, and what I\u2019m asking for is the number we were supposed to be in 2018 when we\u2019re talking about the 2020 budget,\u201d Weydert said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019m asking for. I want you to do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two employees in the assessor\u2019s office echoed Weydert\u2019s comments, saying they understand the county has to make hard choices but, for their workload, they aren\u2019t compensated fairly and feel like they\u2019re at a \u201cbreaking point.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the commissioners, the 2017 pay plan is flawed, so they plan to redo it in 2020 but don\u2019t want to make pay changes before that. Cimino said he would expect the new plan to be implemented in 2021. <\/p>\n

Ultimately, no changes were approved to the budget of the assessor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Finally, the commissioners approved a budget increase for Grand County EMS, which noted at the appeal that its 2020 vehicle budget included about $53,000 that had previously been obligated. <\/p>\n

Even with the additional expense approvals, Grand County\u2019s 2020 budget projects a surplus of over $400,000. The commissioners are expected to officially approve the budget on Dec. 10.<\/p>\n

via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Board of Grand County Commissioners heard budget rebuttals from the sheriff’s office, the assessor’s office and Grand County EMS.McKenna Harford \/ mharford@skyhinews.com Three county departments appeared for contentious budget rebuttal hearings Monday at the Grand County Administration Building that added just over $100,000 in expenditures for 2020. The Board of County Commissioners held budget […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 15:12:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}