Putnam County’s new budget process is underway, with the appointment of a nine member budget committee.
Mayor Randy Porter said the goal is to get the budget passed by the county commission in July, and into the comptroller’s office before the August deadline.
“So far our revenues, as far as sales tax and those type of state revenues have been doing real well,” Porter said. “We are having some issues with fees and so forth on our justice system. Where the court has been shutdown for several months. It’s a little early yet, we’ll probably start looking at revenue around March or April.”
Mayor Randy Porter said the committee’s role is to hear from all the county’s department heads and elected officials and go over Porter’s draft budget.
Porter said the budget committee will analyze things like what the property tax penny rate will be and the estimated revenues. He said the timeline for drafting the budget has changed since he took office in 2014.
“They had been going sometimes until the end of August, even into September with a budget,” Porter said. “State law has changed since then and it’s required the county have a budget in by no later than the end of August. Our goal has been to try to have that done in July.”
Porter said the committee will begin meeting in either March or April. He said they will give an outlook on the budget to the department heads and elected officials as to where the committee is, and go from there.