Commissioners take new direction with midyear budget
The Holmes County Commissioners agreed to delay the annual midyear budget discussion and make it a preliminary budget later in the year after the state removed the need for county governments to do so.
The old way of creating a midyear budget for the county has gone, and a new system will be in place moving forward as the Holmes County Commissioners will take advantage of the state’s removal of a midyear budget for counties.
In speaking with Bob Sigler, deputy director of finances for the county, the commissioners agreed to take advantage of the state no longer requiring midyear budgets and will instead take it as an opportunity to better gauge what the county departments need to operate in preparing for the annual budget at year’s end.
According to Commissioner Dave Hall, the state made the change and notified all counties that they no longer have to do midyear budgets.
However, the commissioners felt it would be prudent to continue to collect all the same data from departments as the year progresses and to continue to do so throughout the second half of the year so they can gain better insight into the needs of the departments much closer to the actual creation of the budget.
“We have the paperwork already out just as we’ve always done for the midyear budget,” Sigler said. “I talked with the auditor’s office, and we’d really like to keep the process in place, push the calendar back and do it as a preliminary budget.”
Sigler went on to discuss the problems with the midyear approach, which he said created a hassle because they were tied down to public meetings and deadlines tied to the midyear approach.
“That’s gone,” Sigler said. “But if we just quit on it and didn’t do (anything), we lose having the requests on appropriations.”
Hall said he would recommend gathering pertinent information from the departments and taking a closer look in September as a preliminary budget approach. He said at that point the commissioners can begin talks and have much better ideas as to what each department’s needs look like.
Sigler agreed.
“This can really work to our advantage, because if we push it later into the calendar year, that’s when people have a better idea of where their finances are,” Sigler said. “That would hopefully eliminate the need for so many budget hearings.”
He said so often departments make a midyear estimate and then have multiple changes, some of them significant. He said waiting closer to the actual creation of the new annual budget would have much clearer and concise information.
“It will be much closer to the actual budget,” Sigler said.
Hall said it is truly a guessing game as far as midyear projection.
“Right now it’s just a wish list,” Commissioner Joe Miller said of the midyear budget.
Sigler said collecting all the pertinent information and estimates from each department is a valuable tool, and getting rid of the concept altogether would be a wasted opportunity. However, he said without the mandates, it creates a much cleaner, smoother and realistic set of financial numbers.
He said it would be a task of seeing what requests come in as the year moves forward and then finding the appropriate time in the calendar to best review the requested budgetary financials.
He said there was one other important component in designating an appropriate timeline.
“We have to have enough time to be able to send them back out so (each department) can verify that this is what they are asking for, and if they need a budget hearing, we’d have time to schedule one,” Sigler said. “That’s what we have to put together.”
The commissioners felt the idea was a good one and will move in that direction moving forward.