Fiscal Court Approves First Reading of Budget

The McCracken Fiscal Court approved a first reading of their 2016-17 budget at their meeting Monday night.

County Judge-Executive Bob Leeper said the documents will now be sent to the Kentucky Department of Local Government for their approval. The Fiscal Court will then vote again on the budget including any corrections or suggestions from the state. Leeper said he's not sure when that will happen, it will depend on when the state responds.

The budget includes cuts to the county coroner's budget, which will impact one job. Coroner Dan Sims currently has a full-time deputy coroner and three part-time deputies. Information shared at previous meetings indicated that a full-time deputy coroner's position is rare in Kentucky, and there was talk of eliminating it, but Leeper said the new budget keeps that job intact while eliminating one of the three part-time deputy positions.

Other cuts included fuel allotments by 10 percent across-the-board, a few cuts to equipment budgeting, and cuts to the pauper burial fund.

Leeper said he thinks it's a good budget, and mentioned a benefit for county employees.

"We've tried to create some reasonable savings and still provide the services that people expect. We gave a lump sum pay raise instead of a percentage - as long as anybody can remember we've done percentages, and when you do that over a long period of time you create a gap in the middle between the higher paid and lower paid, so we chose to do lump sum pay raises for most of the staff," Leeper said. 

Former coroner and current County Commissioner Jerry Beyer was the only dissenting vote on the first reading, since he had problems with cuts to the pauper burial budget and the coroner's budget.