Quorum Court committee forwards department budgets to full court; votes recorded on multiple items

The Pulaski County Quorum Court committee voted Tuesday evening to send multiple department budgets to the full court for final approval, including the Election Commission, Human Resources, sanitation, the coroner's office, the public defender conflicts budget and sheriff enforcement and detention budgets.

The committee approved a consent passage of a batch of 2026 departmental budgets that carried no requested maintenance-and-operations increases and then handled individual departmental budgets on motion. Most budget motions carried with unanimous or near-unanimous roll-call votes to move the items to the full court.

The package's most contested action came on the sheriff enforcement budget (department 400). A proposal to remove a $75,000 increase in the fuels, oil and lubricants line was introduced as an amendment and failed on a 3-5 vote. The main motion to forward the sheriff enforcement budget then passed 6-2.

Other departments were advanced with largely unanimous committee support. The committee recorded votes on the Election Commission's…