Council approves additional money for sheriff’s department
The Brown County Council unanimously approved setting aside an additional $14,000 from the general fund for the Brown County Sheriff’s Department.
Sheriff Scott Southerland attended the Jan. 23 council meeting to ask for the additional appropriation for a budget line he had left out while putting his budget together last summer. It’s to pay for employee cellphones and wireless internet from Verizon.
Southerland initially requested $15,000 as an additional appropriation, but he was able to use rollover funds from last year’s budget to cover the January bill, so he adjusted his request at the meeting to $14,000.
Commissioner updates council on election contracts, budget
Brown County commissioner Diana Biddle told the Brown County Council on Jan. 23 that the county’s election board had stayed below budget for 2020 election contracts.
The council approved the budget for election equipment at a 20-percent increase over 2018, which equaled about $100,000.
At the council meeting, Biddle said she was in the process of finalizing the election equipment contracts for voting machines and poll books on behalf of the clerk’s office.
The new poll books will cost $11,000 a year for three years to lease.
“You’ll have the bigger expenses on election years because you’ll have more programming, software and consumable expenses. I would expect it to be around $70,000 in election years and then somewhere closer to $40,000 in a non-election year,” Biddle said.
She added that those numbers were estimates, and that once she gets the finance contracts back from the vendors, she would be able to give the council a solid number on the cost to lease the voting machine equipment.
“But it’s certainly well within that $100,000 you appropriated for her (Brown County Clerk Kathy Smith),” Biddle said.
The county is proceeding with lease purchase contracts for the equipment, like they do with vehicles for the sheriff’s department.
