Hamilton County Board of County Commissioners decided Wednesday morning to move discussion on budget amendments to next week. The Capital Outlay budget was proposed to increase by $85,000 while the General Fund expenditures are proposed to increase the budget by $174,000. Both fund expenditures are from a surplus fund.
The surplus is to fund three additional voting sites from four early voting sites to seven.
The Commissioners said they wanted to wait until they passed the next budget in July and for Election Administrator Scott Allen to be present in the discussion. Also, the commission voted 6-2 to to move from 9 to 11 School Board districts.
Commissioner Greg Martin initially proposed the delay. He said that if they put it in the budget, which will be discussed in June, they’d have time to do this for the November election. Mr. Martin said he wanted to add voting sites through the budget rather than their fund balance.
Commissioner Randy Fairbanks asked why this was originally in the emergency fund balance. Mr. Martin responded by saying it's not an emergency, but they would have to do something sooner rather than later. He also mentioned this should already be a budgeted item. Commissioner Katherlyn Geter agreed this should not come out of their fund balance. Commissioner Chip Baker also agreed with the budgeting process.
Commissioner Geter said the Hamilton County Election Commission Administrator came before them last week claiming there was no emergency. Commissioner David Sharpe said he thought there might be communication issues with the election commission. He said he did not know if they were going to meet in December or not. The Election Commission just set a meeting for Dec. 9.
Commissioner Martin made a motion to push it to July to include it in the budget. Commissioners Baker, Tim Boyd, Fairbanks, Steve Highlander, Warren Mackey, Sharpe, and Sabrena Smedley voted to discuss it next week. Mr. Allen will be present then.
Commissioner Highlander added he was concerned about senior citizens having to drive to voting sites.