The Habersham County Board of Commissioners approved the fiscal year 2024 budget at last night’s meeting, but it took two tries to get three commissioners to vote for the annual budget.
The fiscal year 2024 budget was presented to the county commissioners by Finance Director Tim Sims for the second time in a week with an unchanged budget of $73.7 million. It was the commissioners’ turn to make changes that would either reduce or increase the budget.
After much discussion about concerns that a few of the commissioners had about the budget, a consensus came forward with a reduction of $371,461. However, that decrease did not sit well with three of the commissioners, and the vote failed to pass. Commissioners Bruce Palmer, Bruce Harkness, and Jimmy Tench were the dissenting votes.
Chairman Ty Akins called for a five-minute recess after the vote. When the commissioners returned from the short recess, commissioner Palmer made the motion to reconsider the previous vote. The vote to reconsider passed 3-2, with Harkness and Tench the dissenting votes.
After a short discussion, the motion was made by Commissioner Palmer to approve the budget with the changes the commission had discussed to $73,548,644, a reduction of only $175,000. The commission voted 3-2 to approve the budget, with Harkness and Tench being the dissenting votes.
The commission made cuts totaling $371,461. However, they added to the budget three more firefighter positions at an additional cost of $196,461. The original budget, before any changes were made, called for only six new firefighters. This change increases the number to nine new firefighters for the coming budget year. The fire department originally requested 21 firefighter positions back in March.
