{"id":21791,"date":"2020-06-25T17:13:07","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T21:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=21791"},"modified":"2020-06-25T17:13:07","modified_gmt":"2020-06-25T21:13:07","slug":"stick-with-old-budget-for-now-lcc-2020-06-26-lcc-2020-06-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2020\/06\/stick-with-old-budget-for-now-lcc-2020-06-26-lcc-2020-06-26.html","title":{"rendered":"Stick with old budget for now @ LCC 2020-06-26 @ LCC 2020-06-26"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nThe Lowndes County Commission did not pass a new budget,
\nand nobody seems to know or at least be willing to say why,
\neven though that was
\non the agenda for that Tuesday meeting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\nInstead, they’ve scheduled a “Special Called Meeting on Friday, June 26, 200, at 9:00 a.m., to consider a resolution to temporarily continue the operation of the 2020 Fiscal Year budget.”<\/a><\/p>\n

\nWe don’t have the new draft budget, but here’s the general fund expenditure chart from
\n
\nthe old budget they’re extending<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n\"[General<\/a>
\n
General Fund Expenditures<\/a>
\n
\n37.12% + 12.17% = 49.29%\n<\/p>\n

\nI wonder if this delay has anything to do with sales tax revenues
\nbeing way down due to the pandemic,
\nand nobody really knowing when they might recover?<\/p>\n

\nThere’s no video of the meeting, but fortunately the VDT was on the job.
\nChris Herbert, Valdosta Daily Times,
\n24 June 2020,
\n
\nLowndes County Commission tables 2021 budget<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\n

\nVALDOSTA — Lowndes County Commission tabled the proposed
\nFiscal Year 2021 budget Tuesday evening.\n<\/p>\n

\nCounty commissioners have until next week, June 30, to pass the
\nbudget that will take effect July 1.\n<\/p>\n

\nCounty commissioners did not give a reason for tabling the budget.\n<\/p>\n

\nLowndes County Commission Chairman Bill Slaughter asked for a
\nmotion.\n<\/p>\n

\nInstead of the normally prompt response by one of the five Lowndes
\nCounty commissioners, five seconds of silence passed.\n<\/p>\n

\n“I’ll take a motion to adopt the FY2021 budget as presented,” he
\nrepeated.\n<\/p>\n

\nTwo more seconds passed before Commissioner Demarcus Marshall
\noffered a motion to approve, which was seconded by Commissioner
\nJoyce Evans.\n<\/p>\n

\nWith no discussion, Slaughter asked the five commissioners to
\nverbally vote on the budget proposal and two voices responded “aye.”\n<\/p>\n

\nThe chairman then solicited for a hand vote. Marshall and Evans
\nvoted in favor. Commissioners Mark Wisenbaker, Clay Griner and
\nScottie Orenstein raised their hands in opposition.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe motion failed.\n<\/p>\n

\nSlaughter requested another motion.\n<\/p>\n

\nMarshall made a motion to table the budget proposal “prior to the
\ndeadline required by the state which is June 30.” It received a
\nswift second and the move was unanimously approved.\n<\/p>\n

The failure to approve puts the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners on a shot clock with less than a week to finalize their budget proposal. Municipalities must pass a FY2021 budget by June 30 and in the intervening time, are required by law to have a special called meeting to discuss the budget proposal.\n<\/p>\n

Due to Georgia law requiring seven days to advertise before a special called meeting and June 30 less than seven days away, the county commission will have to file a resolution for an extension to approve its FY2021 budget, according to Lowndes County Clerk and Public Information Officer Paige Dukes.\n<\/p>\n

The commission will hold the vote to pass that extension resolution at 9 a.m. Friday morning, Dukes said. The date for the special called meeting to discuss the budget is still undetermined, according to Dukes.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nMore later in the VDT story:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThere\u2019s two items we need to discuss further to get ironed out,\u201d Wisenbaker told The Valdosta Daily Times after the meeting.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be a big concern,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe just wanted to make sure what we got is real and good for everybody concerned.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Griner repeated the line that some things \u201cneeded to be ironed out\u201d but said he preferred to discuss it during the special called meeting.\n<\/p>\n

Orenstein declined to comment.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just as surprised as you were,\u201d Slaughter said, stating he did not know why the three voted to not approve the budget proposal.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThere’s still no meeting on the county’s online calendar for approving a new budget.<\/p>\n

\nThe VDT says the Commission approved everything else Tuesday;
\nsee the LAKE blog post on last Tuesday’s agenda<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\nHere are the appointments they made Tuesday:<\/p>\n

\n

Commissioners made a series of appointments: Marion Ramsey to Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals, Beverly Richardson-Blake, George Gaumond, Gary Wisenbaker and Gene Toffolo to the South Georgia Regional Library Board, Suzan Prince and Cisco Diaz to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority and Tripp Howell and Chuck Smith to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Construction Board of Adjustments and Appeals. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nHere’s
\nthe agenda for tomorrow morning<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

\nLOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
\nSpecial Called Meeting
\n
\nFriday, June 26, 2020, 9:00 a.m.
\n
\n327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd<\/sup><\/small> Floor\n<\/p>\n

\nTo comply with the guidelines of the Center for
\nDisease Control (CDC) in regard to the Coronavirus (COVID19)
\npandemic and social distancing,
\n
\n
\nface coverings (masks) are required for all meeting participants.
\n<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \nCall to Order<\/p>\n
  2. \nFor Consideration<\/p>\n
      \n
    1. \nResolution Temporarily Continuing the Operation of the 2020 Fiscal Year Budget,\n<\/ol>\n
    2. \nAdjournment\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

      \n -jsq\n<\/p>\n

      Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The Lowndes County Commission did not pass a new budget, and nobody seems to know or at least be willing to say why, even though that was on the agenda for that Tuesday meeting. Instead, they’ve scheduled a “Special Called Meeting on Friday, June 26, 200, at 9:00 a.m., to consider a resolution to temporarily […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,2,20,88,73,3],"tags":[11140,258,11139,11141,7509,5727,622,8704,8701,8699,489,8702,8710,91,12,7,8734,7505,3621,8731,8644,652,8700,6,2900,8742],"class_list":["post-21791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-government","category-law","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-safety","category-transparency","tag-2020-06-26","tag-bill-slaughter","tag-budget-special-called-meeting","tag-chris-herbert","tag-clay-griner","tag-courts","tag-demarcus-marshall","tag-economy","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-joyce-evans","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lcc","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-mark-wisenbaker","tag-public-safety","tag-safety","tag-scottie-orenstein","tag-sheriff","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-daily-times","tag-vdt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21791"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21794,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21791\/revisions\/21794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}