County Sets Tentative Budget

The Gulf County budget process for fiscal year 2008-09 is basically over.

With barely a noticeable sound, this year's process was a far cry from the marathon meetings and citizen input of 2006 and 2007.

In a special meeting of the county commission at 9:15 a.m. EDT Aug. 4, the board unanimously adopted a tentative millage rate of 4.8949.

That is up from 4.5862 last year and represents, for the county alone, an increase in ad valorem tax collections of 1.9 percent, or just more than $235,000.

One mill represents $1,000 in taxable property value.
The millage rate now only can be lowered, not raised, at the required September budget hearings, the first of which will be at 5:01 p.m. EDT on Sept. 16.

According to commission chair Billy Traylor, "It looks like the budget turned out very well. I'm extremely pleased so far with what we've got.

"Nobody went over budget, and we didn't spend any reserves. The budget today is very, very workable."

He continued by saying if the board could settle about a dozen specific items on the agenda, "we can accept this tentatively today. That's unheard of."

Included among those possible additions and/or deletions which were discussed and voted on were:
l An additional $10,000 for repairs and maintenance of Public Works (failed 3-2, Traylor and Commissioner Carmen McLemore voting yes);
l $300,000 of the county's pledged $600,000, which is the county's share of the $1.2 million joint city-county sports complex.
The board agreed that the county was committed to the project but wanted to see a detailed budget of how and when the city planned to utilize the funds. The motion was unanimous to place the $300,000 in the budget and revisit the item during budget meetings;
l Money for non-maintenance items for parks and recreation (passed 4-1, Commissioner Bill Williams voting no);
l Approximately $60,000 to upgrade the clerk's computer system and purchase software for a work order/purchase order system.

The board voted unanimously to pass the motion to purchase the system on the recommendation of county administrator Don Butler.

In an about-face, McLemore, who has opposed implementation of a county-wide work order system, agreed with the rest of the board members for a unanimous vote;
l An emergency phone notification system. The board voted unanimously to join with the city of Port St. Joe and Mexico Beach in sharing use and annual costs of the system, which Port St. Joe already has up and running.

The system will cost the county approximately $15,000 yearly to maintain, with no ­up-front ­purchase costs, said Marshall Nelson, Gulf County Emergency Management Director.

It will be used to notify residents of emergency situations such as tornadoes, evacuation notices, boil water notices, etc.;
l $50,000 added to the Sheriff's Office budget, which Sheriff Joe Nugent requested to replace several grants the department would not receive during the 2008-09 fiscal year.
l Two motions that each passed 5-0, adding $200,000 to the county's reserves and bringing $200,000 cash carry forward to the new budget, if possible.
Butler told the commissioners that if they did not spend the current $200,000 in reserve on hurricane cleanup this season, they should add it to next year's reserves.
l Removing $90,000 from the $182,000 budgeted for repairs to the old Wewahitchka courthouse, but leaving approximately $90,000 to repair the leaking roof and rotted windows (passed 5-0);
l Using a portion of the $600,000 in escrow for environmental purposes to pay the $125,000 debt service for the Honeyville facility;
l Reducing Mosquito Control's proposed budget by $220,000 (passed 3-2, Traylor and McLemore voting no). Both Traylor and McLemore wanted to reduce the budget by an additional 20,000.

Becky Norris, Gulf County Clerk of Court, told the board it had been "a more pleasant budget year than in the past" and credited the budget committee for smoothing the way.

In addition to voting unanimously for a tentative millage rate of 4.8949, the board voted 5-0 for a one-half mill rate for each of the county's fire districts and voted 4-1 (Peters opposing) for a 6 mill rate on the Gulf-front municipal services taxing unit (MSTU) and a 2.3335 mill rate for Gulf-interior MSTU rate (Peters again opposing).

The MSTU was voluntarily imposed in 2007 by St. Joseph Peninsula property owners on themselves to fund the Cape San Blas beach restoration project currently underway.

After setting the tentative millage rates and while still in the budget meeting, the board agreed to hold a special meeting at 10 a.m. EDT Aug. 6 in the board room to discuss helping the St. Joseph Bay Humane Society with funding until the end of this fiscal year.

The request came from Humane Society board members Sandi Christy and Gary Gibbs, who also told commissioners how helpful it was to have county inmate work crews helping with Humane Society kennel work.

Traylor also wanted to discuss at the Aug. 6 meeting animal control and the county-wide problem of viscous and large breed dogs, especially pit bulls, running loose in the county and causing problems.

A special meeting that had been called for 9 a.m. wrapped around the budget meeting, as the first meeting was only halfway concluded by 9:15 a.m.

In business conducted during the two sessions of the first meeting:
l The board voted 4-1 (Williams voting no) to adopt the recommendation to switch the county's insurance carrier in order to save money;
l The board voted 5-0 to add Honeyville Park Phase 3 to the capital improvement schedule;
l The board voted 5-0 to go out for bids to build an addition to the current Public Works building.

After public comment from local contractor Dr. Patricia Hardman over numerous violations of the county's own building codes cited in the bid, the board decided to reject any bids that came in on the project by the Aug. 8 deadline and also cancel the bid and rebid correct specifications.

l McLemore asked that officials from the state building code office and state insurance office come and answer questions about wind zone categories in the county.

Traylor said he wanted to make sure the 2001 building code changes that created a single 140-mile-per-hour wind zone category county-wide was "done properly" and the changes were correct.

According to Gulf County attorney Tim McFarland, the 2001 ordinance was not sent to the state building commission for approval but was not required to be sent in 2001.

It would be a "cleaner method" for the county to re-adopt the ordinance and send it to the state building code office for approval as law currently requires, he said.

Commissioner Nathan Peters said he considered it a dead issue, the wishes of the board "were already expressed" and that Traylor and McLemore should not have brought up the issue.

The board voted 3-2 (Traylor and McLemore opposing) to send the ordinance "as is" to the state for approval.

l The board approved unanimously to publish requests for proposals for a county lobbyist and to hire attorney William Harrison on an emergency basis to act as the county's lobbyist to immediately work on an upcoming legislative review of Gulf County's coastal construction control line.

Harrison has worked before as a lobbyist on the county's behalf.

At the end of the meeting, a representative from the county's former insurance carrier announced he wanted to file a protest over the county's acceptance of another carrier's insurance package.

McFarland instructed the board to schedule a bid protest hearing in conjunction with the next regular commission meeting. The bid protest will be held at 8:30 a.m. EDT Aug. 12.