Cannon County Schools present their budget proposal and the majority of it was spent going down and trying to find $10,000 to trim off the budget. Barbara Parker Director of Cannon County Schools, reviewed her budget that the Board of Education passed last week. The budget called for the County to set the tax appropriation at 90 cents. Currently the tax appropriation is set at 88 cents. After going over the budget, the Committee then started talking about the various tax appropriations. The Budget Committee then set the schools appropriation at 88 cents as some of the Committee felt that the $2.3 million dollars that the Schools have in their fund balance was enough to operate on without an increase in appropriations. The debt service appropriation was set at 3 cents also leaving it as it is from the previous fiscal year. Ambulance Service appropriation was set at 20 cents and Solid Waste was set at 16 cents. These are the same figures as the last fiscal year.
While looking into setting the appropriation for the General Fund, the Committee took out their scissors and went to cutting some costs again. Several items were cut and after it was all said and done $10,000 from various departments were cut including a line item of postal charges under “Other Emergency Management” which went from $60 to just $10. There was nothing in the line item from the year before. Another $10,000 was cut from the Library. Last week officials from the library approached the budget committee asking a $9,000.00 increase for the salary of the director. Last week, Library Director Tina Norris announced that she has applied for another position at another library. The $10,000 was an incentive to keep Ms. Norris as the director, however it was announced that she accepted the other position. The Committee cut the $10,000 increase since she took the other job. There was no action taken on the tax appropriation for the County General Budget. The County Departments will be asked again to make cuts in spending before the next Budget meeting next week.
