County passes 2018 budget

County passes 2018 budget

Quorum Court adopts $ 23 million spending plan; cuts costs without cutting services

news@theeveningtimes.com

Crittenden County passed its 2018 budget which includes a three percent pay raise for employees, but is still over $4 million less than last year’s budget.

The Quorum Court approved a $23 million spending plan for 2018 which is nearly five million less than the $27.8 million they spent in 2017.

“It’s a budget we can all be happy with and work with,” said County Judge Woody Wheeless. “The fact that we have a three percent pay raise built in and yet still have a smaller budget than we had last year is a testament of how well these department heads and elected officials do their job.”

On a related matter, County Treasurer Charlie Suiter said sales tax collections for November were $206,285 and that December’s sales tax collections should also come in at around $205,000 to $206,000.

Overall sales tax collections for 2017 should finish at about $2.3 million which is about $100,000 over budget projections.

“We’ve had a very, very good year as far as revenue,” Suiter said. “We’re almost identical to last year. Everything is covered.

Let’s hope that next year is just as good.”

Wheeless thanked elected officials and department heads for their hard work in putting together another good budget.

“We have a great team,” Wheeless said. “I think we all have pretty much the same vision of what we are trying to accomplish and where we are headed.”

“Everybody watches every penny,” Suiter added.

By Mark Randall