By KENDALL OWENS
T-H Staff Writer
St. Francis County employees received an endorsement Tuesday night from the quorum court budget committee which will pay each employee a $500 incentive in November.
The county's elected officials submitted a plan to justices Tuesday, which would have paid all county employees, except the elected officials, the $500 bonus in November and also would have included a 5-percent pay raise. The proposal also called for the money to be taken from the worker's compensation account which currently has a total of $104,000. Justices voted by a 6-0 margin to grant the $500 bonus, but agreed that the issue of the raise would be considered later in the year. Justice Evan Seawood voted for the measure, but supported giving the employees the full proposal.
"All I know is that the six people that have been elected to run this courthouse all signed off on this proposal and I think we should do it. It's been four years since the employees had a raise and they deserve it. Mrs. Harbin (County Treasurer Ann Harbin) says that the money is there and I don't see where this court comes off trying to decide how the courthouse should run when the people that are up here day in and day out have agreed to this," Seawood said.
"I'll vote for giving this because I'm for the employees. But my throat was cut on this one," he said after the vote.
Budget committee chairman Henry Wilkinson said that he felt the court would be best served agreeing to the bonus, but waiting until the end of the year to revisit the raise issue, after the county has a better grip on next year's finances.
"Right now, the figures from Mrs. Smith (County Clerk Elizabeth Smith) show that we'll have close to $1.5 million in revenues projected over the next four months and $1.1 million in expenditures. If we come in close to those figures then we'll have close to $400,000 in carryover at the end of the year. Once we've got more solid figures on our finances for next year, we can better work on getting them this much needed raise," he said.
The move by the budget committee came after an earlier decision by the personnel committee to hold off discussions of pay raises and bonuses. The personnel plan would have included looking at using a portion of the hospital funds for the incentives.
In other budget committee action, justices agreed to change the formula for the hospital funding so that the funds could be tracked better. The payments currently are split equally with $66,000 going to the county general account, the road department account and the trust account. The new formula will place $66,000 in the road department and $122,000 in the county's trust accounts.
The Caldwell City Council on Tuesday approved an ordinance which spells out some revisions in the town's zoning regulations.
Some of the revisions include: No mobile home parks (more than two mobile homes on a single lot) will be allowed in the city; All homes or manufactured homes require a minimum lot size of .75 acre; No manufacture homes will be allowed within 700 feet of Ark. Highway 1.
The vote to adopt was unanimous.
On another matter, Mayor Gary Hughes reported that the city has been negotiating for a new fire truck. He said that so far, offers have ranged from $137,000 to $149,000.
Hughes also said that he has contacted several vendors who have been setting up on Saturdays. He said the existing city regulations forbid vendors from conducting a retail business in a quiet neighborhood district. He said the people have been notified that they are in violation of the law.
People in violation are being given 30 days to cease their selling, from the date of a letter sent Aug. 7. Those remaining in violation could be subject to fines of up to $200 per day.