Raises were hot topic with Henry County Board of Supervisors budget meetings

At the Jan. 25 Henry County Board of Supervisors meeting, the county supervisors heard from department heads on their FY23 budgets. Many of the proposals were basic budget submissions with most departments not seeing substantial increases in their budget requests.

“The budget is extremely flat from last year, with the exception of requesting raises for the employees,” said Henry County Public Health Director Shelley Van Dorin. “This has been a very difficult year for my employees. We did 64 outreach clinics. That takes time and effort to complete those, along with the standard workload that still exists.”

The Henry County Board of Health provides many services to the residents of Henry County, of which, they have been providing COVID-19 clinics at certain sites throughout Mt. Pleasant in general.

“I have made this comment to previous budget presentations,” said Chairman Greg Moeller, “Personnel is obviously our most expensive part of any budget. There may, or may not, be some tight squeezes concerning such raises. Personnel is quite costly, and I hope that everyone understands that issue.”

County Recorder Mindy Fitzgibbon said, “Our recorder’s office budget is down, lower than previous budget years. I have tried to lower expenses within the office.”

“With the cost of inflation, being what it is,” Fitzgibbon added. “I would like to see some increase for my employees. These jobs used to be considered ‘cream of the crop’ that is no longer the case.”

A request for a budget work session prior to budget presentations was requested by Fitzgibbon. The request was that the county department heads meet to talk about ways to gather budget information, and to discuss way to implement different processes in creating budgets.

The Board of Supervisors has yet to meet to decide the outcome of the budget requests for FY23. They are still in the process of meeting with the County Compensation Board to determine the outcome of the requests.