By Holly Roeder
and Kara Crump
Staff Writers
Following the County Commission meeting of July 22, the Chester County Commission held a Budget Meeting to redo the current budget proposal that was previously denied on Monday, July 29.
Those present, with a seat at the table, included Commissioners Mike Alexander (officiating the meeting), Jerry King, Kevin Faulkner, Jerry Emerson, Brenda Matthews, Director of Accounting and Budgets Gary Irwin, Chester County Mayor Barry Hutcherson and Advisory Board members Gayle Cox, Deborah Keen and Judy Benard. Committee Chair Ann Moore was absent.
Commissioners who had voted “No” to the proposed budget at the July 22 Special Called meeting had been instructed to send an email to Chester County Mayor Barry Hutcherson detailing why they had voted as such. These emails (from Barry Smith, Jerry Lowe, Dwight Bingham, Todd Lewis and Brenda Matthews) were read aloud at the Budget Committee meeting.
The budget committee discussed cutting funding for the veteran’s program. Russell Clayton, Chris Dunbar, Paul Martin, Gloria Holiday and Ashley Thompson spoke to dispute. No final decision was made during this meeting. “If it wasn’t for the Veterans serving us, we wouldn’t be in this room right now talking,” stated Clayton.
Troy Kilzer II, Director of the Board of Education and Stacey Keen, District Financial Supervisor, addressed the budget committee, with a proposal by the Board of Education to reallocate funds to the county in connection with the TPA tax revenue source. Kilzer explained this amount is routed to cities and counties but funds are most often directed back to the school district. “For this one time,” Kilzer explained, “this non-recurring..gift, to county general, for $140,000, so that we can possibly get one more positive vote to vote for our tax base and give us an opportunity where we can share our contracts with our employees as soon as possible.”
In later discussions of the solid waste budget, advisory member Judy Benard stated one line item included only $35,000, where this year the total had been $212,000. She said they were advising to leave $100,000 in for solid waste and to move $100,000 to the county general fund.
As a change to the library salary had been addressed at the previous commission meeting, it was clarified that the salary had not in fact increased for 2024-2025, but had only appeared that way due to the reporting of the previous budget spent to date when compared with the total amount for the year.
While several other changes were discussed, and more detail for those mentioned above, the Independent is unable to report on all of them due to poor sound quality and inconsistent use of microphones.
The committee voted unanimously not to submit the final budget proposal for inclusion in this edition of the Chester County Independent. Irwin said that he was advised to submit the revised budget to the newspaper by County Technical Assistance Service, but also that CTAS noted in the case of minimal changes newspaper submission was necessary only at the committee’s discretion and committee interpretation of “minimal changes.”
Irwin further informed that in the revised proposal, the budget committee would be “increasing revenue in the general fund by approx. $237,000, less than 10% difference in what the ending fund balance will be.”
The newspaper did attempt to acquire a copy of the proposed budget to include in this week’s edition; however, it was unable to be provided prior to press time.
See the online article at chestercountyindependent.com for the Independent’s audio recording of this meeting.
