Capital outlay notes used for sheriff?s cars

Despite issues with financing industrial park improvements with capital outlay notes, the Warren County Commission has encountered no such problems fulfilling its other funding pledges with this method.

At its meeting Monday night, the commission voted unanimously to approve a $110,000 capitol outlay note to purchase vehicles for the sheriff?s department.

The commission also foresees no problem with issuing a $390,000 capital outlay note to finance school buses, thus allowing the school system to divert money from its budget to fund teacher raises. However, the reason for this move is actually due to another restriction placed on capital outlay notes, since they can?t be used to fund recurring expenses, which the teacher raises constitute. The note will instead be used to fund school buses, which do not technically represent a recurring expense, thus getting around yet another restriction on this type of funding.

Although commissioners say they see no problem with funding school buses with a capital outlay note, they do say they won?t issue the note until the teachers union comes to an agreement with the school system on how the raises will be distributed. Considering negotiations have stalled to the point where the teachers union has called for federal mediation, it may be some time before this issue is resolved.

However, several commissioners have noted they won?t vote to issue the note if the salary dispute is not resolved to their satisfaction.

An order of business to allow director of accounts Linda Hillis to advertise bids for the industrial park road project was withdrawn due to the continuing problems with financing the project with capital outlay notes.