Elected officials who were asked to cut 3 percent from their offices' non-payroll budgets for the upcoming fiscal year all met their goal, Kanawha County commissioners learned.
The officials presented their reworked budgets, each showing varying degrees of dollar reductions, to the commission at its Tuesday morning meeting.
County Assessor Sallie Robinson made $3,996 in cuts from her office's budget, while Circuit Clerk Cathy Gatson made $4,522 in cuts.
County Clerk Vera McCormick made a $25,600 cut, cutting 3 percent from her office's election budget and 3 percent from the office budget - a greater reduction in spending than was requested.
Kanawha County Sheriff John Rutherford cut $84,430 from his office's total budget of about $14 million. About $40,000 of those cuts came from the sheriff's office's gasoline fund. No reductions were made to the overtime budget, which has almost $700,000 in it.
With the decline in coal severance money, one of the four officers whose salary is paid for by coal severance will have his salary paid for by the general fund instead. This isn't because there wasn't enough money in coal severance to pay the salary, it was because no more than 25 percent of coal severance can go to paying for personnel, Commission President Kent Carper said.
Prosecuting Attorney Chuck Miller cut about $14,000 from his budget. Currently there are 23 lawyers employed by the prosecutor's office, including Miller. The number of lawyers will remain the same, despite the budget reduction.
After each elected official presented his or her budget, Carper warned them that the numbers being discussed aren't official because the state Legislature isn't finished with its budget yet.
"We just think these are the numbers," Carper said. "If we're wrong, we're just going to need to cut more."
The County Commission also made a 3 percent budget cut by agreeing to reduce spending on contributions, supplies, equipment, travel and contracted services by $180,000.
The total cuts for all the departments equal $320,325.
In other news, the Kanawha County Commission hired James Young, the executive director of the Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority, to be its new deputy planning director.
Young, who has a master's degree in city planning, will be transitioning to his county job over the course of six months so that he can continue to advise the Solid Waste Authority as it goes through financial troubles.
Last month, the Solid Waste Authority announced that it was almost out of money until it got $50,000 in grants from Kanawha County and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
Currently, the Solid Waste Authority is looking to find a building where it can process recyclables because right now it is losing $5,000 a month. Young will continue to help the effort to obtain a building for the authority, submitting the loan application for around $500,000 through the Solid Waste Management Board.
"It can't go on indefinitely," Commissioner Dave Hardy said of Young's work arrangement. "That's not fair to you, James. That's not fair to the Solid Waste Authority."
Young will work out of the Kanawha County Courthouse and go to Slack Street when he's needed there.
The Solid Waste Authority will begin looking for a new executive director around May, and hope to have him or her in place by the time Young is done with his transition.
The County Commissioners also discussed their opinions on the legislative agenda for the remainder of the session.
Carper expressed his displeasure with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (HB 4012), calling it "disgusting." He asked the staff if the county's non-discrimination employment policy would be in jeopardy if the law passed and the staff said that the county could be open to lawsuits.
Carper also questioned the bill that would allow permit-less concealed carry (HB4145). If the Legislature were to cut gun permit fees with that bill (which is not currently included in the language) the sheriff's department could potentially lose $70,000 to $100,000.
The commission also came out against a bill that would enable counties to perform minor fixes on state roads. Carper said that he felt that it was a way to pass costs from the state to the counties.
Reach Daniel Desrochers at dan.desrochers@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4886 or follow @drdesrochers on Twitter.