Tag Archives: LCC-Budget

Videos: Day 3 of Budget Hearings @ LCC Budget 2015-03-05



The

Airport Authority got inserted among the judges and lawyers,
and the

Coroner’s Office failed to turn in a budget.
The day was mostly sitting around waiting,
because most of the actual presentations were only a few minutes each,
yet were scheduled hours apart,
in the last day of the
three days of
“Budget Hearings” which aren’t really hearings because nobody from the
public can speak and they don’t have a budget to hear yet.
See the first day for
the agenda.

Here are links to videos of each item with some notes by Gretchen,
followed by a video playlist.
No video for the first item, EMS, due to camera failure; sorry.
For the rest,

as the Chairman said, referring to Gretchen and the LAKE camera:

We have our videographer back there, so we’re ready.

Hm, maybe LAKE should submit a budget request to the county…. Continue reading →

Videos: Day 2 of Budget Hearings @ LCC Budget 2015-03-04



Maybe Georgia should fund mental health facilities instead of

local jails having to act as mental hospitals.
On a positive note,

Agriculture is an $81M industry in Lowndes County.
Law, taxes, and education, in the second day which was only in the morning,
of the
three days of
“Budget Hearings” which aren’t really hearings because nobody from the
public can speak and they don’t have a budget to hear yet.
See yesterday for
the agenda.
Here are links to videos of each item with some notes by Gretchen,
followed by a video playlist.
And one more day to go today. Continue reading →

Videos: Day 1 of Budget Hearings @ LCC Budget 2015-03-03


300x400 Commission and agenda, in Agenda, by John S. Quarterman, 3 March 2015
It’s good the Commission is having these meetings where they can
hear directly from the various department heads.
And with LAKE’s videos, you the citizens can hear what the departments
are asking for.

Also, why are these called budget hearings?
The public doesn’t get to speak, so they are not actually public hearings,
and they are not the state-required budget hearings before passing a budget:
they don’t even have a draft budget yet.
And the next time the Commission rushes citizen speakers to finish,
remember
this 14 minutes of dead air
or the several others like it in yesterday’s meeting.

They met in the Commission Chambers,
nevermind the address
on the Commission’s calendar
yesterday,
and

still says for today’s meeting.

There’s still no agenda posted, except for paper copies in the Commission building, which read as below. Continue reading →

Three days of Budget Hearings @ LCC Budget 2015-03-03



Billed

back in December as “Commission Meets with Constitutional Officers,
Elected Officials, and Outside Agencies”
and two weeks later than originally scheduled, it’s
three days of what is on the County’s calendar now as

Budget Hearings,
today, Wednesday,
and
Thursday,
all three days at the Lowndes County Governmental Building,
300 N. Patterson St., Valdosta, GA 31601.

There’s no agenda posted.

At least these meetings are on the county’s calendar before the last minute,
which is an improvement on
last year.
However, last year they did publish an agenda.
Here are videos of last year’s similar hearings.

-jsq

Videos: second and final budget hearing @ LCC Budget 2014-06-24



The Chairman refusing to publish a draft of the budget before the hearings
didn’t get any more people to show up.
Only a handful of people where there who didn’t work for the county,
and
no citizens spoke.
I still don’t see the budget on the county’s website, two weeks later.
I guess you can look at the LAKE video of

Finance Director Stephanie Black’s presentation
and hope it has the parts you want to see.

We didn’t know about

the first budget hearing on 17 June 2014,
but here are videos of the 24 June 2014 budget hearing.

Continue reading →

First of two public meetings on the budget @ LCC Budget 2014-05-27



Chairman Bill Slaughter started this morning’s budget session as
“the first of our two public meetings on the budget before that
budget will be adopted; basically a work session to go over the budget.”
Does that mean it is a Public Hearing?
If so, why do the county’s front page and calendar link to

a blank page for a “Budget Session”,
and there’s no Public Notice, even though there were
Public Notices for

the two road abandonments on the agenda for the Work Session and Regular Session?
How can it be a Public Hearing if it’s not announced as such
and the public doesn’t know about it?
Gretchen says that near the end they clarified that this was not a
Public Hearing, and there would be two actual Public Hearings
before the budget was adopted, although when is still a mystery.

Here’s

a video playlist, followed by links to the individual videos.
There are no links to an agenda, because the county didn’t publish an agenda, nor a draft budget.

Continue reading →

Videos of Day 1 @ LCC-Budget 2014-03-10



It’s a good thing the county held these first-ever (as far as I know)
comprehensive budget sessions.
Here are videos of the first day.
Most of the departments are asking for more money,
due to increased population and increased demand for services
during a period of economic downturn.
Something needs to be done, and these sessions are one step in
getting to doing something.

Here’s

the agenda.

Sheriff Prine @ LCC-Budget 2014-03-10



Lowndes County Sheriff Prine
talked about
Administration,
the
Jail,
the
Commissary,
and
Enforcement
at the
first day of Budget Presentations to the Lowndes County
Commission, 10 March 2014.
Like most other county-funded departments, he asked for more personnel.
The long squeeze of the economic downturn needs to be addressed somehow.
These videos show how the Sheriff proposes to address them.

Continue reading →

4 out of 5 pictures remain @ LCC-Budget 2014-03-10



Somebody took down a Commissioner picture from the
entry way to the Lowndes County Commission Chambers.
Could it be

this one?

He did show up briefly this afternoon to collect his stuff. Continue reading →

Suddenly an agenda! @ LCC-Budget 2014-03-10



You can go to the rest of the budget meeting, which is tomorrow.
Some time after this morning when I looked for it,
today’s

budget meeting
magically appeared on

the calendar
and in

Current Events
on the Lowndes County front page.
It shows most of the day tomorrow also as budget meetings.
And at 5:30PM tomorrow (Tuesday) there’s still the
County Commission Regular Session.

Plus in the middle of all that, the Airport Authority
is having a Board Meeting at the Commission Chambers.

Only a little more than a year ago, Continue reading →