It’s up to Sweetwater County Sheriff Mike Lowell to balance his budget and determine if he needs to ask for a budget amendment.
During the Sweetwater County Commissioners meeting Tuesday morning, the Commissioners discussed what happened at a meeting April 10 between members of the sheriff’s office, attorney’s office, human resources and county clerk’s office. The meeting was set to go over the projected shortfall in the sheriff office’s budget.
“It does not appear that there’s anything we need to do at this time,” Commission Chairman Reid West said. “Obviously, he has not consumed his budget amount yet and so he has quite a bit a latitude to manage his budget as he sees fit.”
West said they received a voicemail from Sheriff Lowell stating he wouldn’t be able to make it to Tuesday’s Commission meeting, to which West responded that Sheriff Lowell really didn’t need to be in attendance.
West said at the April 10 meeting, the group came to the agreement that there is an anticipated shortfall of $162,000 now, which is a different figure than previously thought. As for the capital projects and operating budget funds, they are not sure where those are at.
West did point out that due to unanticipated revenues such as $93,000 in health insurance savings and $23,000 from a grant, the shortfall is less than it could have been.
One of the issues with the shortfall is the comp time that the sheriff chose to pay out.
“We do have a policy regarding how comp time is paid out and it states that it can be done at the end of the fiscal year....” West said.
Sheriff Lowell could pay the comp time through money left over in the budget in that same fiscal year or by asking for a budget amendment to do it.
West said Lowell apparently asked for comp time to be paid for the previous fiscal year to be paid out in September.
“Even though policy doesn’t allow for that, somehow it was paid out,” West said. “It was an oversight. And then, he decided rather than give comp time he would pay them over (time.)”
“He disputes the fact that the policy we have in place for comp time applies to him,” West said. “We’re going to have to get some legal advice on that.”
West said at this time there’s nothing else the Commissioners can do until Sheriff Lowell comes forth for a budget amendment.
“Elected officials have a responsibility to manage their approved budgets,” Commissioner John Kolb said. “They however, do not have the right to overspend those approved budgets. It’s just that simple. If folks can’t add up multiple lines of things, where they may be a bonus in there that hadn’t been accounted for yet, anything that was clearly not that elected officials responsibility, well, I supposed they need to go back to school and learn some simple mathematics. It’s clear we have an over budget issue here.”
Commissioner Randy Wendling said if it’s a policy issue that’s not clear, then the policy may need to be changed to address future issues.
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