County Breezes Through Budget Meeting

RISON - While county sales tax revenue is currently down this year, the Cleveland County Quorum Court’s budget committee was able to approve a proposed 2025 budget last week that will include a 3 percent pay raise for city employees as well as money for some new equipment for the county road department.County Judge Jimmy Cummings said the budget committee, which includes all nine justices of the peace, completed its annual budget meeting held last Wednesday at the Hall-Morgan Veterans Building in Rison.During the budget meeting, the committee reviews the proposed budgets for each department within county government, and then approves the county budget as a whole. The decision reached last Wednesday is actually a recommendation for the quorum court to consider when it meets next month to formally adopt next year’s budget.Cummings said county revenue is expected to remain about the same next while while overall expenditures for the county are projected “to be a little bit lower” than they were this year. He attributed that to the county tackling several one-time expenses that will not be repeated next year.For instance, the county approved buying a new road grader, a rubber-track excavator, new trailer and a used truck to pull a trailer for the road department this year. Those purchases will not be repeated next year.In addition, this year was an election year, which means the county had to fund poll workers,  voting machine programming and other expenses for both the primary and general elections. The only elections scheduled for 2025 will be the local school elections.Cummings did note that the county included money in the budget for buying a new “belly” dump truck and another trailer this year for the road department.Another good sign for the budget, Cummings said, is that he expects to carryover about $45,000 in the county general’s non-appropriated fund. The non-appropriated fund is essentiall...