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Lincoln County commissioners table final budget vote until Dec. 2 to await missing data
Summary
After reviewing budget revisions that include retiree health savings and staffing changes, commissioners voted to delay a final budget vote until Dec. 2 to allow an absent member to participate and to wait for outstanding risk-pool numbers.
Lincoln County commissioners voted to table a final vote on the county's budget until Dec. 2, citing the absence of one commissioner and outstanding risk-pool information needed to finalize numbers.
County staff presented revisions to the draft budget that include switching retiree health coverage to a Medicare Advantage plan, a change staff said reduces the average retiree cost from about $700 to $472 per month and saves the county just over $30,000 annually. Staff also reported updated planning revenue estimates and that a 7.7% health-insurance increase came in slightly under an 8% assumption used in earlier drafts.
Commissioner (Speaker 2) moved to postpone the vote "to table final vote until December 2," a motion the board approved by voice vote. Staff and commissioners said the brief delay would allow time for missing risk-pool figures and for the absent commissioner, identified in the record as Bill, to participate.
Discussion at the meeting touched on staffing requests from the district attorney's office: the DA has selected a paralegal candidate and is pursuing hiring a victim-witness advocate; those personnel changes will create additional backfill and budgetary implications. County staff offered to follow up with the DA and with neighboring counties to obtain comparative pay and staffing data if the DA has not already provided it.
Commissioners also asked whether the county has formal written criteria for evaluating nonprofit and outside funding requests; county staff (Speaker 4) said there is no written policy and that historically such requests (for example, funds for the Historical Society, Soil & Water, and Extension) are presented to the commissioners and routed through the Budget Advisory Committee before a final decision.
The board’s stated next step is to reconvene and vote on the budget at the Dec. 2 meeting after the outstanding figures are supplied to the commissioners.
