LaGrange County Council Update
The LaGrange County Council met
on December 12, 2011 for the final session of the 2011 calendar year.
Dr. Rhonda Sharp, County Health
Board President, addressed the council
regarding a request for an additional
appropriation of $100,201.10. She
requested that this be tabled until
February of 2012 so the Health Board,
at their January meeting, can better
define who and for what these funds
from the Tobacco Settlement Fund
can and should be used in LaGrange
County.
The council was next presented
with a proposed meeting schedule for
the 2012 calendar year. The council
will be meeting on the second Monday
of each month as well as the second
Tuesday of August and September
where the extra day will be for budget
presentation and hearings. In October the meeting will be on the second
Tuesday due to a holiday on the second
Monday.
County Commissioner George
Bachman reported that the LaGrange
County Utility District will hold an
information meeting in Shipshewana
on the rate proposal for the Shipshewana Lake Project. He also reported
that there is a sanitary wet land issue
at the Animal Shelter, he is not sure
at this time what the exact problem is
and how it will be fixed.
by Jac Price
There were no committee reports
for the council members. The council
made two appointments to the LaGrange County Redevelopment Commission. The appointments were Fred
Brown as the Council Representative,
and Greg Johnson as the community
representative to the commission.
The council next acted on a deappropriation of $44,000 from the
Jail Food account. We next acted on
the transfer of funds between several
accounts. We also gave the Auditor
the authority to make any transfers
between funds to be sure that all
accounts are in balance at the end of
the year. We approved three salary
ordinances which will take effect on
January 1, 2012. These included the
Jail Maintenance Technician, an ICE
student at Soil & Water and a 911
employee. We next considered the
Additional Appropriations for the
year end operations within several
departments. The Legal Claims for the
months of October and November were
presented. The council approved the
October Claims of $9,496.95 and the
November Claims of $10,280.75.
2011 has been a very challenging
and yet very rewarding. Early in the
year we were informed by Department
of Local Government Finance (DLGF)
that we needed to cut the General
Fund Budget, that they had approved,
by $1,200,000. There was a meeting
of the Department Heads and they
did a good job of finding ways to trim
their operations and budgets to help
meet the cuts. This was followed by a
committee of council and commissioners who determined where some of the
unexpected expenses could be paid
from that did not affect General Fund
dollars. In mid-August the council sat
in session for two days having presentations for the 2012 budget year. After
these presentations it was determined
that we would need to cut from the requests some $2,800,000. In mid-September the council met for two days to
analyze and adopt a balanced budget.
After cutting some requests and, in
some cases, paying some expenses
from non General Fund dollars, we felt
we had a budget that was balanced and
in October we approved the budget.
This budget was submitted to DLGF
for their approval. It is anticipated
that approval will come in late December or early January. This year’s cuts
demanded by DLGF have caused an
excessive amount of transfers within
budgets and additional appropriations,
I am hopeful that this will not happen
in the future years.
As always, we will try to be good
stewards of your tax dollars.
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The Hometown Treasure · Jan. ‘12 · pg 41