MOUNT VERNON — The Knox County Commissioners met with Judge Otho Eyster on Monday morning to discuss budget matters. Eyster told the commissioners he was facing a budget shortfall and needed to transfer an employee’s salary from the general fund to the Special Projects Fund.
Common Pleas Court Mediator Carrie Knell’s salary had been assigned to the court’s general fund from the beginning of the year but Eyster said they had planned to transfer it to the Special Projects Fund earlier in the year but there had not been enough money in it to do so until recently. The Special Projects Fund is funded through filing fees through the Clerk of Courts Office. Filings had been down this year and the fund was underfunded compared to previous years.
Eyster said there was now about $45,000 in the fund and he wanted to transfer Knell’s salary to it now using about $25,000 of it through the end of the year. This would leave about $20,000 to carry over to 2011 for Knell’s salary.
The commissioners agreed to look over the figures and if they approved it, have Eyster send them a court order to make the transfer.
The commissioners also heard from Knox County Job & Family Services Director Matthew Kurtz in the morning session. Kurtz reported on the effort to link Knox County Job & Family Services with those of seven other counties to hook up electronically to provide a virtual call center whereby a call in any of those counties would be handled by the next available phone regardless of which county it was in. Kurtz reported the project was progressing and that when in place it would be much more efficient than the current system.
The commissioners also released the latest figures for sales tax collections in the county. Figures for August show an increase in collections of the county’s share of local sales tax. This was the fourth straight month for an increase. Teresa Bemiller said the rate was on line to meet the projected take for 2010.
To date the county has collected $3,213,210.41. This compares with a grand total of $3,728,977.92 for all of 2009 and an estimated total of $3,600,000 for 2010.
“It’s not what it was in 2009 but it is encouraging that it has been increasing the last four months,” Bemiller said.
