Conservation board disappointed in line-item budget cuts

BY BROOKS TAYLOR

Mt. Pleasant News

Henry County supervisors were handed a resolution from the Henry County Conservation Board during the supervisors? regular meeting Thursday morning.

Conservation board members are unhappy about the reduction of line-item appropriations in the department?s general basic fund budget without prior knowledge from the supervisors.

In the resolution, the conservation board says, ??The Henry County Conservation Board is authorized and empowered to establish a fiscal year budget to accept in the name of the county, gifts, bequests, contributions and appropriations of money and other personal property for conservation purposes.

?Now, therefore it is hereby proclaimed by the Henry County Conservation Board, that the Henry County Board of Supervisors, prior to final approval, discuss, consult and reason with the Henry County Conservation Board, any line-item amendments or changes to a proposed or approved fiscal year budget.?

Marc Lindeen, vice chair of the supervisors, said that Gary See, board chairman, had tried to contact John Pullis, county conservation director, several times before the budget was finalized, but was unsuccessful. See was not at Thursday?s meeting.

County Auditor Shelly Barber said it is a matter of interpretation, agreeing that some line item amounts had been reduced, but that is because the department had not been spending close to what was being budgeted.

For example, she pointed to the employee mileage, meals and lodging line item. In fiscal year 2016, the conservation department budgeted $2,100 and increased the asking to $3,600 in the fiscal 2017 budget (the supervisors reduced the 2017 amount to $2,300). The current budget year, however, is 80 percent gone, and the department has only spent $448, or 21 percent, of what was budgeted.

In the department?s lubricants line item, $1,500 was requested in 2017, which was pared to $750. So far, in 2015-16, $352 has been spent.

Another decrease was in education and training service where the department requested $8,500 and received $7,000. A total of $1,239 has spent thus far this year. However, the fiscal 2017 request includes sending an employee to the law enforcement academy. The department also asked for $9,000 for natural gas, LP gas and fuel oil, which was cut to $4,000. Thus far this budget year, nothing has been spent from that maintenance and operations account line item. In fiscal 2015, $2,515 was spent.

?We always look at the money spent (the previous budget year),? Barber said, ?and if it is not spent, we cut it down. The board (of supervisors) wants the budget close to the accurate amount spent. The total budget also is more important than the line-item amount.?

The conservation department actually has three funds ? general basic, general supplemental and conservation ? in its total budget.

Pullis said line items in his general basic fund have been reduced by $17,000. However, Barber said the amount is around $15,000.

Largely due to the addition of a new $14,000 budgeted construction and maintenance line item in the conservation budget, and salary and benefit increases, the total conservation budget is $539,822, a 3.92 percent increase over fiscal 2016?s expenditures of $519,458. Thus far in the current budget year, the conservation department has spent $348,342, or 67 percent of its fiscal 2016 budget.

In supervisor sub-committee reports, Lindeen said he learned during the recent meeting of the Southeast Iowa Link (SEIL), the regional mental-health group, that it is possible some clients may have to go out of state to receive treatment because the managed care organizations will not pay for treatment in Iowa.

Supervisors will meet again in regular session on Tuesday, April 19, at 9 a.m., in the Henry County Courthouse.