Hart BOC Begins Formal Budget Talks Tonight

Hart County will also continue with its Fiscal 2016 budget reviews this evening.

Hart County’s fiscal year doesn’t start until October 1, but the Board of Commissioners and County staff typically begin work about six months ahead of time.

Tonight after their regular meeting, the Board will meet with various department heads in the first of a series of such meetings.

At their meeting earlier this month, County Administrator Jon Caime said, like Franklin County, Hart County is quickly running out of its cash reserves, but Caime has not yet made any recommendations regarding the County’s millage.

Caime told the Board, however, requests from County departments for the next fiscal are outpacing the anticipated revenue.

Caime showed the Board via a PowerPoint presentation how the County has over the past number of years slowly depleted every reserve fund at its disposal.

“Unfortunately, we’ve spent most of not all of our special revenue funds to get through difficult times in the past,” he said. “You can see that during that seven year period, we relied heavily on the special fund balances, but we’re getting to the breaking point now and I’ve been warning about this for some time.”

Meantime, at their regular meeting this evening, the board will hear the second reading of their proposed poultry house ordinance.

At their May meeting, the board went over the ordinance in detail before approving the first reading.

County law requires three readings of a new or amended ordinance before it can become law.

Tonight’s regular meeting begins at 5:30p at the County Commission offices on Reed Creek Highway followed by the budget meeting.