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They slashed office budgets, haggled over tuition reimbursement, questioned expenditures and added sheriff patrol car purchases to the budget. The committee then scheduled an 8 a.m. special board meeting for this Friday, at which time they will listen to budget justifications from department heads and approve the budget for publication.

The commissioners want the proposed budget publicized in the Sanilac County News on Dec. 5 and available for review in the county clerk's office. Commissioners plan to adopt the budget on Dec. 17, following a public hearing.

They started Monday's session with a proposed $12,032,593.73 budget, including $775,000 carryover. Administrator John Males explained he, the county treasurer and chief deputy treasurer are projecting a contingency fund of $465,621, which is only 3.8% of the budget, and have spread the $309,378 balance from the carryover throughout the budget.

Males emphasized the need to continue building the Delinquent Tax Revolving Fund because of the uncertainty over whether state revenue sharing will be restored.

"We don't have many places to cut, as we have already made across the board reductions of 28.4% several years ago. If we need to make additional reductions we are pretty much down to non-mandated services," Males stated.

The carryover is made up of the current $170,000 contingency fund and savings from: $300,000 in health insurance; $50,000 from the departments; $15,000 from the law library; $50,000 from data processing; $100,000 from the out-of-home child care fund; $30,000 from accumulated benefits; and $35,000 from the insurance buyout.

Proposed budget highlights include:

*The budget team did not tap the county reserve fund ($231,000) or health insurance retiree fund ($132,000), which the law requires them to build up.

The county reserve fund is money from the tax shift the state started a couple years ago in order to temporarily stop paying revenue sharing to local governments. It gradually shifted the bulk of property tax payments from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. The fund will be used up in 2010, and if the state doesn't resume revenue sharing the county will be up the creek.

Treasurer Kathy Dorman explained why they cannot use that money to balance the budget.

"The tax shift has had a huge impact on our cash flow because 50% of our budget is property taxes. We now have a big dip in the middle of the year...We had trouble meeting payroll (in June, July and August)...This is real, this is not the county crying wolf," she stated.

They were over $1 million in the red in June and July and around $500,000 in August.

*The commissioners directed the budget team to take $90,000 from the sheriff's $125,000 in revenue from the federal marshal prisoners and use it to buy four new patrol cars. The balance will go into his budget.

They have been leasing new patrol cars, which costs about $30,000 year over three years.

The sheriff also explained the difference between overtime and holiday pay to Commissioner Norton Schramm, noted the uniform cleaning allowance is part of the union contract, and stated changing to a 12 hour shift has reduced over time.

*The MSU Extension budget came in at $167,918, approximately $650 less than last year's.

"How much longer can we fund Extension, it is not mandated?" asked Commissioner William Walters.

"As long as we can, till we go broke," said Schramm.

*They nit-picked their way through the prosecutor's budget, cutting non-personnel expenses back to last year's numbers or zero in cases in which they haven't used allocations such as conferences or office equipment repair.

During their discussion of the Construction & Land Use budget, Commissioner Judy Vincent suggested they cut office expenses across the board.

"I agree with Judy, a lot of them held the line," stated Schramm.

*After a lengthy discussion, they agreed to keep the tuition reimbursement allocation at $1400 and establish a policy on how it is dispersed.