Putnam Committee Cuts $1.2 Million From Budget

Putnam County’s budget committee cut about $1.2 million out of the budget Monday.

Putnam County Executive Randy Porter said the committee has now passed every major budget except schools.

“Cut about $1.2 million out of the requests which there was about $2.5 million in new requests and not enough revenue to cover the new requests so they had to make some tough decisions,” Porter said.

Those tough decisions included new jobs.

“Several departments asked for new employees and they ended up cutting some of those, they did leave some, they left 2 new employees in the ambulance service, two in the fire department, two in the sheriff’s department, jailers, all the rest were cut, then cut a few other items out of the budget, enough to get about $1.2 million,” Porter said.

The board of education will review another draft of its budget at its next meeting on June 29. Porter said the budget committee hasn’t set a date to vote on the schools budget yet.