We’re more than a third of the way through 2019, but some Pulaski County officials are still trying to pay bills out of the 2018 budget. More than $10,000 in encumbrances were presented to the county council for approval Monday.
Governing bodies would typically have the option to pay for 2018 expenses out of the 2018 budget, even if the bills don’t arrive until 2019. The problem, according to Auditor Laura Wheeler, is that the departments didn’t tell her that’s what they wanted to do. She said she didn’t realize the expenses were supposed to be encumbered until she tried to pay them out of the 2019 budget.
Council Member Ken Boswell asked what steps, if any, the county’s taking, so that the issue doesn’t keep happening in the future. “It’s fine and dandy; if we have to pay something, we have to pay it,” he said. “But if we as a governing body don’t come up with a plan or a mechanism to solve these kind of problems, I think we fail.” Boswell suggested giving new employees some type of manual, while Council Member Kathi Thompson suggested discussing the issue with department heads at budget time.
In the end, council members approved a $4,000 encumbrance request from Building Inspector Doug Hoover. It was a bill from DeSabatine Brothers Excavating for site cleanup related to a Medaryville blight elimination project. Council Member Rudy DeSabatine abstained from the vote, after some slight prompting from his fellow council members. A budget transfer had been approved in December to make that money available in last year’s budget.
Council members also approved an encumbrance request from the Highway Department for just over $6,400, that had similarly fallen through the cracks.
