Officials want plan in place by January

A week ago it was the officeholders’ turn to present their wish lists during the annual budget hearings.

Now comes the hard part as the county commissioners determine how much of a Santa Claus they can play for the New Year.

“It helped us tweak some minor things,” Commissioner Jason Stephen said about the hearings. “It was more of a planning session for 2011. If we can get the budget in place by January, it gives the officeholders something to work with, instead of a temporary one.”

Facing the commissioners as they put together the new budget are two potential impacts — one on revenue and the other on expenses.

“I think we are going to have a bigger carryover, not necessarily a healthy carryover,” Stephens said. “You can always use more. You don’t want to hoard money away, find that balance (between) providing service and being fiscally responsible.”

With a looming $8 billion Ohio budget deficit, the future of the $900,000 Lawrence County gets from the local government funds the state provides is in question.

“There’s the potential impact of the local government funds,” Stephens said. “If they totally eliminate it.”

Since the state’s budget runs from July 1 and the county’s begins on Jan. 1, at least half of those funds are expected to be there.

“The six months are still in place,” Stephens said. “We want to make sure we don’t budget for 12 months when there’s six months going to come in.”

On the expense side of the equation are the start-up costs and operational costs of the new county ambulance service.

A few weeks ago, Lawrence County was forced to start its own service when the Southeast Ohio Emergency Medical Services, the tri-county emergency service it had been a part of for decades, folded.

“It’s an unknown cost,” Stephens said. “To say we have an idea of how much it will cost, we have a general idea. The problem we run into is the patient payments. When we start up new, we won’t get paid from Medicare and Medicaid until February.”