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Hamblen County Mayor Bill Brittain presented the Expenses portion of the County’s Budget to the commission’s finance committee.

Brittain began and increase in the commission’s budget for audit services.

“There is an increase for this budget of $3,076,” he said. “Most of that is for an increase for our Audit services which the state sets. It is based on the population in the county and it has gone up by $2,900.

“Medical insurance for commissioners has gone up $1,900 and maintenance agreements for the voting systems that commissioners use is up $1,700. We had a decrease in state retirements which offset some of those increases.”

Another increase was seen in the County Mayor’s budgets which increased by $6,598.

“You will see an increase for the County Mayor which is set by the state,” he said. “The state legislature tied the salary of elected officials and election administrators to what state employees received the year before which was about 4.87%.”

Brittain then explained the fluctuation of the election commission’s budget and why this year it is down $49, 131.

“You will see during your term as commissioners the election commission’s budget will go up and down based on how many elections we have in a year’s time,” he said. “In the coming year we only have an election which is the March presidential primary.

“You will see some reductions in budgets for election workers and contracts with private agencies which is the company that operates the software for elections.

“We will have a decrease in legal notices, so we won’t have to put as many legal notices in the paper because we will only have one election.”

Brittain explained that retirements from the Register of Deeds office is the cause of its increase in its budget.

“Jim Clawson, Register of Deeds, is having some turnover in his office from retirements so you will have an increase in deputies and he is wanting to bring someone in to train and that will increase the budget for both salaries and medical insurance. For data processing equipment that will be paid for his fees.”

A decrease in budget for the planning office is due to the shifting of positions in its office.

“Right now the planning office handles not only planning but also storm water operations, codes enforcement and build inspections,” he said. “When you look in the budget there is a part time position that is going away because it is moving to the storm water budget and the request is to make it full time because of the need to meet requirements of the storm water permit.

“There is an increase for legal fees because we are anticipating more court cases with the enforcement of the zoning regulations, building codes and property maintenance. However, overall the budget is down $11,861.”

Brittain explained the increase in the maintenance department’s budget is also due to retirement.

“The increase in the supervisor’s line of $5,200 is a raise given to the maintenance supervisor and was voted in by the last commission,” he said.

“We are having one of our maintenance technicians retire and so the supervisor is wanting to hire someone for 4 to 6 months and train under the retiree who does a lot of the HVAC and electrical work.”

A $33,228 decrease in the finance department’s budget was found due to employees being promoted, Brittain explained.

“We have one person who is new to the office and three people who are new to their positions,” he said. “With the death of two employees we had to do some shuffling and we were promoted up.

“With shuffling all those hooks around and with less experience than the ones who were in those positions the salaries are a little lower than they were before and that’s where the decrease is found.”