If the issues with Clark County’s budget are to get better, they’re certainly going to get worse first. And getting better? That’s a big “if.”
The Clark County Council and County Commissioners Jack Coffman and John Perkins discussed the issues at the council’s Monday meeting. With a $193,000 premium payment for property, casualty and workers’ compensation insurance looming, the commissioners unable to guarantee that they’ll pay the bill out of the county’s cumulative capital fund and the general fund in the red, the council decided to form a committee to explore its options at the suggestion of Councilwoman Susan Popp.
According to Perkins, the county is facing an end-of-year shortfall of approximately $4.6 million, with $2.6 million needed by the sheriff’s department for operation of the county jail and another $2 million cut from the commissioners’ budget.
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The council is also looking for relief from the state. As the county has been awaiting a ruling from a case between Clark County and the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance in Indiana Tax Court since February 2012, the council voted unanimously to authorize sending a letter to Statehouse legislators from Clark County asking that they support the DLGF and Clark County entering mediation to discuss restoring the county’s levy to its 2007 level.
The county had asked the DLGF for a levy increase in 2010, which the DLGF denied. The county appealed in 2011.
“This is going to go on ad infinitum until the levy is where it needs to be,” Perkins said.
