Staff member says county road budget largely unchanged, flags vehicle and excavator purchases

A Lincoln County staff member told colleagues the road department’s budget for the coming year is largely unchanged from last year and that updated wage and insurance figures from staff in Dallas have not yet been incorporated. "Coming year 1.275," the staff member said when asked for the total.

The staff member said they trimmed some line items, particularly fabricated materials and oils, and do not expect to "get as much done this year as far as chip sealing, so that should be less." They also consolidated machinery and equipment entries, removing a duplicate line so the budget shows a single equipment line with a subtotal the staff member described as 170.

When asked to compare with last year, the staff member said there was "400 some thousand left" on last year’s total budget. Another participant identified last year’s figure for Ray at 1.361. The staff member agreed to try to get updated numbers from Dallas and to email the revised report to Nikki so others can access it, but said the county’s Black Mountain portal would not export the file to PDF or allow an easy transfer.

The staff member outlined planned capital replacements: a pickup currently budgeted at about 180,000 to replace an aging truck, and a desire to replace an older excavator with a newer used model (a 308 or 310), estimating roughly $100,000 to $120,000 before trade-in. "If I could get a trade in on ours, then that would help," the staff member said.

No formal motions or votes occurred during the exchange. Participants discussed logistics for exporting the budget reports from the Black Mountain site and agreed staff would follow up to share updated files. The meeting concluded with a brief note about ending the Zoom connection and closing the discussion.