Budget adjustments and end-of-year transfers
The Pottawatomie County Commission approved a series of budget adjustments and end-of-year transfers during their meeting Monday.
Funds were transferred to the accounts of various departments from an “unclassified” account in order to make up for exceeded budgets.
This included moving $200,000 to the solid waste department due to increased waste removal from St. Mary’s to a landfill, $21,800 for the district court due to the purchase of a server and 13 computers capable of essential software updates and about $5250 dollars for the commission department due to publication costs of tax-foreclosure sales and Blue Township Sewer District codes and the purchase of a laptop and tablet.
While the county saw an increase in costs due to the extra waste removal, it also saw a significant increase in revenue from last year of about $170,000.
While most of the adjustments and transfers were routine, commissioner Pat Weixelman continued to ask plenty of questions and says he is going to continue taking a thorough approach in supervising the county’s budget.
These departments going over budget doesn’t cause the county to be in violation as all money being adjusted from one account to another still falls under the general fund.
Several departments also transferred about $6 million to reserve funds for the purpose of saving for future projects and equipment purchases.
Changes to the Unified Development Regulations
Pottawatomie County commissioners voted to rescind policy providing a number of exceptions to a rule stating all entrances to subdivisions must be externally connected to paved roads.
These exceptions fall within the policies of the county’s Unified Development Regulations.
Zoning administrator Gregg Webster explains some of the effects of this change.
One point of contention over this change is how it will affect the level of financial responsibility local developers have when it comes to roads that must be paved around subdivisions.
According to Public Works Director Peter Clark, many counties have systems in place that dictate how this responsibility is shared between the county and developers.
He says that Pottawatomie County has the financial capability of putting a system in place, but hasn’t laid out the details of how that would work.
The commission eventually requested that a meeting be set up with developers to discuss road work on Harvest Rd..
