Jack Franklin didn’t mince words at Tuesday’s Allen County Commission meeting. His beef: the 2013 budget.
“I think you’ve created a monster in 911 (dispatch services),” said Franklin. “The economy justifies cuts.”
First draft of the county’s 2013 budget projects expenditures of $12.7 million and an ad valorem tax levy of 73.518 mills, 5.883 mills more than this year. This year’s expenditures are forecast at $11.9 million.
Commissioner Rob Francis defended the budget, noting it had been higher.
“A few years ago we had a budget of over $13 million,” he said.
Commissioner Dick Works quickly interjected $2 million of that was for construction of a new cell at the landfill.
Spending for dispatch services this year is budgeted at $546,194. The request for 2013 is $609,273.
“We took over the service because the city was having trouble running it,” Works said. “Now we’re running it, and running it right.”
The last year Allen County and Iola shared expenses of dispatch services, each paid about $180,000.
Works noted that equipment was antiquated and with a new and much more comprehensive center, dispatchers were able to respond quickly and with more information to save lives.
“How many lives have been saved,” Franklin asked.
“I don’t know, but what’s a life worth,” Works countered, and observed that “here is where the decisions are made” on expenditures and “we’re trying to look down the road.”
“It’s our duty to see that people are safe,” Francis chimed in. “Angie (Murphy, dispatch director) does a good job of keeping down expenses, and we have better dispatch than counties around us.”
IN A MORE measured response, Works added that each year “we get requests” from department heads and others affected by the county budget. Those numbers are tabulated and categorized by Rodney Burns, the county’s financial consultant.
“We then try to hold down the budget,” Works said, promising that numbers in the first draft wouldn’t be the same as those in the final budget.
Budgeting isn’t at the level commissioners would prefer, Works said.
