Lake County reviews second-quarter supplemental budget requests including 9-1-1 equipment, water-grant match and lodging tax shortfall

Lake County commissioners on Wednesday reviewed a slate of second-quarter supplemental budget requests, focusing on aligning submitted budgets with finalized figures, covering outstanding grant matches and resolving a lodging-tax accounting discrepancy.

The session began with a presentation about the county’s 9-1-1 authority budget and an equipment contract tied to the county’s dispatch system. County staff said the authority’s board had finalized its budget and submitted figures to the state but those final numbers were never entered into the county’s accounting system (Tyler) after a staff departure. Finance director Candice Bryant apologized for the oversight and said the supplemental request is intended to align what was submitted to the state with what is in the county’s books. “I should have picked up on that. It wasn’t updated in Tyler,” Bryant said.

Staff described a separate, but related, expense tied to new Motorola dispatch equipment. Presenters said the original equipment the county planned to adopt was superseded by a state-approved radio that carried a higher price; the project has been paid in installments. County staff said the equipment contract’s total was $678,360 (as reported in the budget materials), with about $264,000 paid in 2024 and an outstanding balance tied to change orders and milestone payments. Staff later identified a more recent change-order figure leaving roughly $413,000 remaining and noted a $65,000 invoice was currently due. Officials said the radios and console equipment are expected to have a…