Minutes - 20060627 - Laserfiche WebLink

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and the true hardwoods that will be left. The County Commissioners agreed with leaving $10,900 for Fairview Community Center funding. Chair Jacobs made reference to the COLA and said that Commissioner Corey's way suggests a 2.2% COLA and an in-range of 2.0°~. Chair Jacobs' suggestion is to raise the COLA to 3.0% instead of doing in-range salary increases. This comes out exactly the same amount of money. Commissioner Carey said that the staff would be raided if the County does not keep up with the in-range increases. He wants to show employees that the County cares about them and he thinks it is good for employees to look forward to this. Commissioner Halkiotis spoke in support of the 3°~ COLA. John Link said that his recommendation is to bump the COLA to 4% and if the Board bumps this, he can find the money without increasing the overall budget. Chair Jacobs asked about the last item -Decrease Construction Management line item of $50,000. Donna Dean-Coffey said that the Manager recommended $100,000 for construction management in the budget. The proposal here is to reduce this to $50,000, which would allow for the Senior Center construction management. There is $60,000 from last year's budget and this would be carried forward to allow for any other projects that may need construction management. Commissioner Gordon asked if the Manager could do these cuts anyway and John Link said yes. Commissioner Carey said that the Manager is proposing that they will save this money anyway and use this toward COLA instead of in-range. Chair Jacobs said that last year they did just the in-range and a lot of employees had to wait until their anniversary dates and they felt short-changed. Commissioner Gordon said that the 3% COLA was a great start. Commissioner Foushee agreed that the 3°~ is goad, but the 4°~ is better. Commissioner Carey said that he wants to reduce the tax rate, but not at the expense of the employees. A motion was made by Commissioner Carey, seconded by Commissioner Foushee to increase the COLA to 4% and asked the Manager to find the $130,000 for this. VOTE: UNANIMOUS Chair Jacobs made reference to the Fair Funding Reserve and said that his recommendation is a reduction in SRO funds for OCS equivalent to two vehicles ($65,000). Commissioner Carey said that the Manager recommended $800,000 for the Fair Funding Reserve, and in looking at the material they were given, it looks like CHCCS is spending $360,000 on SROs from two different sources, OCS is spending $180,000 from some source, and the Sheriff was proposing to spend another $176,000 on SROs for OCS. This comes to about $700,000 for SROs. He suggested reducing the $800,000 to $500,000 and letting the two positions that the Sheriff has stay there. Therefore, both school systems can use the $350,000+ that they are already spending for something else. Commissioner Halkiotis proposed leaving this at $800,000 to maximize the opportunities for both school systems. This is a good faith effort. Chair Jacobs said that he proposed leaving $800,000 for bath school systems (in his proposal) for SROs or other health and safety related positions. Commissioner Gordon spoke in support of the reserve for $800,000 and leaving it as unrestricted as possible. The work group supported the $800,000.