Bradley County finance committee approves a slate of budget amendments, schedules department hearings

The Bradley County Finance Committee approved a series of budget amendments affecting road maintenance, public safety, health and other county departments and scheduled department budget hearings for this Thursday at 11 a.m.

The committee approved each amendment by voice vote, with the chair calling each roll and announcing a 5-0 result on the motions recorded in the meeting minutes. Committee members also set a timetable for department and elected-official budget presentations, asking staff to arrange appearances by the sheriff’s office (including jail and workhouse accounts), the library, emergency management (EMA) and other department heads.

The vote tally repeated across the meeting: motions to amend departmental budgets were offered, seconded and approved without dissension. Many amendments moved funds between line items within a department (for example, from a deputy payroll line to equipment or data-processing lines at the sheriff’s office) or authorized use of fund balance to cover specified costs. Several departments requested vehicle purchases and reallocated existing budget lines to pay for them rather than including the purchases in next year’s budget request.

Misdemeanor-probation staff noted a substantive operational change driving one amendment. Rich, a misdemeanor-probation staff member, said the county had added $55,000 to an expense line after a change in law requiring electronic monitoring in some domestic-violence cases and that “to date through Friday, we’ve already collected 69,000.” The committee approved a $15,000 revenue-and-expense amendment to fund electronic monitoring costs.

Committee members discussed auditor-mandated adjustments to fund balances for the road department. A finance staff member described the change as satisfying an audit requirement; the committee approved an amendment to adjust a road fund balance by approximately $131,102 as an auditor-driven fund-balance correction.

Emergency management and EMS also shifted money in current-year lines to purchase vehicles and equipment. EMA moved two vehicle-purchase items together; the committee approved both as a package. EMS accepted a grant and corresponding expense increase of…