SWEETWATER COUNTY — The Sweetwater County Board of County Commissioners approved two budget amendments Tuesday morning, moving funds from the county’s Strategic Development Reserve Fund. However, the commissioners voiced some disappointment with the amendments.
The first amendment approved was for $2.24 million for the RTU Project at the Sweetwater County Detention Center. Rebeca Romero, the county’s accounting specialist, said the change order would allow the county to replace aging equipment and maintain a “safe, efficient operation at the detention facility.”
We’re talking millions of dollars and I’ll just simply end it with: Sweetwater County is better than this.
Advertisement - Story continues below...Chairman Keaton West
The amendment passed 4-0, with Commissioner Island Richards being absent from the meeting. The second amendment, pulling $1,47 million for the Knight Oil Building project, was also approved with a 4-0 vote.
Chairman Keaton West and Commissioner Robb Slaughter expressed disappointment with the process that necessitated the budget amendments. West said a full conversation about the issue will take place with the full board of county commissioners during their first meeting in August.
“I wasn’t going to say anything about these two amendments, but it seems like something needs to be said,” West said. “When it was brought to my attention last week, I really didn’t have anything good to say at all about them.”
West said it’s unfair to put the commissioners in the situation, saying they rely on county staff to communicate and prepare accurate information so they can be informed prior to making difficult decisions. He said drafting a balanced budget affects multiple agencies and elected offices across the county, saying the situation brings “a great deal of frustration, embarrassment and disappointment” when there’s a lack of communication leading to the need for both amendments.
“These are not unanticipated expenses, these are expenses that should have been encumbered across two different fiscal years,” West said.
Commissioner Robb Slaughter said the Capital Committee had specific conversations about how the expenses would be handled in the budget, saying he thought it was something that would have been taken care of in the budget.
“It obviously was not,” Slaughter said. “Because of that, it looks as if something is out of order when it should not look that way.”
Slaughter said they knew the two projects were ongoing and appropriations should have been made in the current budget, but that didn’t happen.
“We’re talking millions of dollars and I’ll just simply end it with: Sweetwater County is better than this,” West said.
