INDIAN RIVER COUNTY – In a sparsely attended, daylong affair, County Administrator Joe Baird reviewed departmental and agency allocations, took questions from Commissioners and heard comments from the public during budget workshops in the Commission Chambers.
Minor changes included restoring $18,000 to New Horizons of the Treasure Coast Inc., a mental health and substance abuse nonprofit, and putting approximately $25,000 back into the elections budget after Supervisor of Elections Leslie Swan made a forceful presentation, detailing budget cuts she has already made and explaining why this year’s county election expenses will be higher than last year’s.
Commissioner Peter O’Bryan, joined by Commissioner Joseph Flescher, pushed hard to restore $34,000 to Child Services.
“In a $258 million budget, can’t we find $34,000 for kids?” O’Bryan asked.
The answer turned out to be no.
Commissioners decided to follow Baird’s lead and keep all of the $1.6 million savings the Sheriff’s Office will garner next year from reduced pension fund contributions despite a presentation in which Sheriff Deryl Loar outlined his budget cuts and need for additional funds.
The Sheriff did manage to hang onto the approximately $450,000 in pension contribution savings his office will see in the final quarter of the current fiscal year.
Baird said he had written the Sheriff and other constitutional officers asking that the fourth-quarter pension contribution savings be rebated to the county, but Loar said his understanding was that once his budget was approved for the current year, the money was his to spend, and commissioners did not dispute that.
Loar also received a commitment from the Commission for additional capital funds to replace a portion of his aging patrol car fleet, but the details and exact amount of the extra money were not nailed down.
Minor changes to several parts of the budget were accounted for out of a $600,000 contingency fund included in the proposal, reducing that fund to $541,000, but leaving the overall budget amount unchanged.