Commissioners hear budget updates and discuss zoning

The Sumter County Board of Commissioners met on July 9th in the County court house. County Administrator Doug Eaves addressed the Board concerning the budget: “We still have 60 day’s worth of expenditure revenue recognition that may come in, but I wanted to give you an idea of where we ended up for the year.” He gave the revenue listed in the budget as $22,073,262, contrasting it to the revenue that had come in; “we ended up with $20,450,219 which does not include the $4.3 million of fund balance that was budgeted. . .revenue wise we were actually over in our revenues but we’re still short for the year compared to our expenditures. Our expenditures for the year was $21,371,190. Our revenues were short $920,900.”

He broke it down by department. “Of the 47 departments that are located on the general ledger for the general fund, 13 of the 47 were overbudget.” He stated the need to address the situation. “The state requires us to be budgeted for those 13.”

Finance director Lorenzo Reddick addressed the Board: “We’re looking to be around 1.2 million short from what we, or over from, what we projected.”

Commissioner Mark Waddell asked about Park’s and Rec’s budget concerning health insurance. Reddick replied; “when they brought on the employees, I don’t think they considered budgeting for those empty positions at the time, so I think that brings in that shortfall.” He gave further details. “We brought on people that we didn’t have and we didn’t account for budgeting for the position itself when it came to health insurance.”

Commissioner Clay Jones also commented on the budget for Park’s and Rec. Reddick mentioned a recent dues increase the Parks and Rec had approved at a prior meeting. “They voted to raise the fees to cover this.” He gave further details. “We would hope that we would have enough money to actually work with his line items.”

Parks and Rec director Tim Estes was not present, but commented after the meeting; “I’m not aware we were over budget.” He did mention that individual line items could have been over budget. “Once all of the end of the year journal adjustments are made-our department should be well under budget.”

County Attorney Hayden Hooks addressed the Board on the proposed changes to the zoning regulations. She mentioned data centers would be allowed as permissible businesses in any of the commercial districts.

Commissioner Jim Reid commented on agritourism. Baldwin proposed that agritourism be added to the Ag district as a conditional use. Lakefront property was discussed.

Hooks also commented on the Board of Zoning and Appeals. “The Board of Zoning and Appeals hasn’t been following the letter of the law dealing with variances.” She mentioned that there was a recommendation by staff to take the powers to issue variances from the Board of Zoning and Appeals and to put them in the planning commission. The planning commissioner would provide a recommendation, and the Commissioners would decide on a variance. Hook mentioned an issue with how much minimum road footage the Zoning Board was allowing for the front of a lot.

Fire Chief Jerry Harmon also commented. “The old ordinance said 500 ft, the road frontage. The new ordinance says 250 to give them a little leeway, and they went with 20ft.” Acccording to Harmon, this would create what is know as a “flag lot.” Baldwin noted that was something that everybody was against.

The board then discussed a potential ordinance requiring all taxes to be paid before a new building permit is issued. Harmon addressed the board again. “I’ve been with the County Code enforcement just shy of twenty years, and this is something that’s always been done. We check your taxes before we sell you a building permit. We go straight to the website. What we found, it’s not in our policy.” Harmon mentioned that if the Board wanted them to continue checking taxes before issuing a permit, they would need to put it in the policy.

Smith questioned Harmon; “why ya’ll wait so long to do this?”

Harmon replied; “we just discovered it.”

Smith stated they need to tighten up; “this should have been in writing all the while.”

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