By Derek Spellman
dspellman@joplinglobe.com
NEOSHO, Mo. — Newton County residents should not see any reduction in services this year under a budget approved last week by the County Commission, a commissioner said.
Presiding Commissioner Jerry Carter said the budget does not call for any layoffs or reduction in hours for workers, though it also doesn’t include cost-of-living raises for employees or officeholders. The county’s fiscal year tracks with the calendar year.
“We have built up a reserve over the years,” Carter said of how the county has weathered the recession. But, he said, the county has had to tap those reserves over the past two years.
Carter said some of the capital projects the county hopes to start this year — the relocation of emergency dispatch services and the expansion of the jail — will depend on the cost of the bids it receives.
The budget for the general revenue fund this year projects $9.82 million in expenditures, compared with a little more than $12 million in last year’s budget. Carter said more than $2 million of that difference reflects outside grant or stimulus funding that the county had hoped to receive last year but did not.
The county received a total of a little more than $5.39 million in sales tax revenues last year, a decline of 4.88 percent when compared with the figure for 2008. This year, the budget projects $5.45 million in sales tax receipts.
The county awaits bids for two separate projects — the relocation of 911 services and the expansion of the county jail — before deciding whether and how to proceed with that work.
The plan is to move the 911 center, currently in the county courthouse, to the former armory building at 202 W. Brook St. The county has selected an architect for that project. Plans call for about 4,000 square feet of the former armory building, which already houses the county’s emergency operations center, to be used as the 911 center’s new home.
The building would be retrofitted to accommodate the new center. A separate entrance would be constructed on the north side of the building, and walls and partitions would be put up to provide space for dispatchers, equipment and training.
The complete project could cost an estimated $1 million, although final estimates are to be determined. The county is to seek bids for the work later this month. The budget tentatively plans for the work to be done this year, although Carter said that might come down to the bid amounts.
“That will be a make or break,” he said.
The county might have to phase in the work over time, Carter said.
As for the jail, the county is reviewing qualifications submitted by more than a half-dozen architectural firms.
The county will not decide whether to embark on the expansion until February or March, when it hopes to have construction bids in and proposed construction costs.
If it did pursue an expansion, that would require outside funding, likely in the form of bonds made available through the federal stimulus program. The program allows local governments to issue their own bonds for public projects and to be reimbursed by the federal government for a portion of the interest they pay.
