Lyon County Commission
By Brandy Nance
Originally published 08:01 a.m., June 15, 2011
Updated 10:46 a.m., June 15, 2011
See live coverage of the Lyon County Commission study session here.
8:45 a.m.
Chip Woods, Lyon County engineer, discussed a letter from the Kansas Department of Transportation for a road safety audit; discussed the comparison on 2010 and 2011 expenses through May report; and discussed the temporary toad closing starting at Road U and 360 going north to Road 370 and Road U5.
9:45 a.m.
Sue Blechl, director of the Emporia Public Library, discussed the 2012 funding for the four libraries in Lyon County: Emporia Public Library, Americus Library, the Lyon County District No. 1 Library in Allen and the Elemdaro Township Library in Hartford. Blechl asked for a five percent increase over 2011 funding for a total of $ $116,689.
Blechl said the library meets many community needs.
“The library provides entertainment, education and the technology needed to do daily routine tasks,” she said. “Filing income taxes has to be done on a computer. Filing unemployment has to be done on a computer with Internet access. Just having a computer isn’t enough.”
Blechl said all of the four libraries are below the state average for local funding. Emporia is at $22 per capita funding and the state average is $40, Blechl said.
“This puts us at a disadvantage,” she said. “We cannot do what other libraries do.”
10:05 a.m.
Lyon County Appraiser Gary Stapp talked about the need for another staff member in his department. The Appraiser’s Office is switching over to a new computer system, Stapp said, and is in need of one more staff member to help get that off the ground.
10:10 a.m.
Robert Sullivan, director of Community Corrections, asked for permission to purchase eight electronic monitoring units from Behavioral Interventions not to exceed $11,300.
10:45 a.m.
A meeting is being held with department heads in the county to discuss goals and concerns in regards to the 2012 budget.
Lyon County Controller Dan Slater said the county has started off with an idea to try to keep the budgets as flat as possible but realizes with some budgets and departments that will be impossible. Slater said every dollar the county spends comes from the taxpayers' pocket.
“We also realize that sometimes you pinch pennies too tight and all you get is a flat penny,” Slater said. “We do a good job of taking every penny we can and spending it as wisely as we can.”
Judge Merlin Wheeler expressed concern over the District Court Trustees budget. Wheeler said the combination of the recession and lack of jobs are affecting collections of of court-ordered fees.
“I think we’re in shape where we can pretty much predict the amount of collections is reducing,” Wheeler said. “And that’s going to impact the revenue side of the Court Trustees. The office performs a very good service to us.”
For complete coverage of this meeting, see Thursday's Gazette.