The Greene County Commission's Budget & Finance Commitee on Monday approved the remaining proposed county departmental and fund budgets for the fiscal year that began July 1.

The budget committee also approved a resolution to request the unclaimed balance of any funds remitted to the state treasurer under the unclaimed property act.

The committee approved proposed budgets for the county's school system and Highway Department, as well as for the general debt service and educational debt service funds.

Two weeks ago, the committee approved the general fund budget, which includes most county departments, and the Solid

Waste Department's budget.

County Mayor Alan Broyles said at the end of Monday's meeting that the committee will meet again on Thursday, to try to get the county's total 2009-10 budget ready to present at a workshop before the commission's July 20 meeting.

The budget will not be voted on at the workshop, however. The mayor said he does not plan to present the budget for passage until the commission's Aug. 17 meeting.

The month's delay is intended to give the committee enough time to make any adjustments that surface at the workshop and still meet public notice requirements, according to Broyles and Budget Director Mary Shelton.

A public hearing will precede the vote that day, Broyles said.

During discussion of the Highway Department budget, Commissioner Hilton Seay said he remains concerned that the department has 11 positions that are funded but not filled. He conceded that money from these positions has always been used for asphalt, stone or equipment in the past, and that more money is needed for those items.

However, Seay said he thinks that if the money is not used for personnel, then it should be moved to appropriate line items.

Weems was not present, but has said he is reluctant to eliminate the positions, because workloads in the department are somewhat seasonal, and subject to the influence of weather and especially natural disasters such as flooding or heavy snows.

Mayor Broyles said that if funding is left in the salary line items, and positions are left unfilled, then the road superintendent "has a choice" about where to spend it, and has more flexibility. He noted that state law gives that right to "any office holder."

After more discussion, the highway budget was approved unanimously, as presented.

The schools budget was approved with minimal discussion, since it had been presented as balanced and recommended by the school board last week.

Mayor Broyles pointed out that state law allows the county commission only the option of voting the school budget up or down, and does not allow for line item changes.

The related budgets for school food service and the education debt service fund also were approved with minimal discussion. Commissioner John Cox noted that the Education Debt Service Fund is again making payments this year on the bonds that financed construction of Chuckey-Doak High School and Mosheim Middle School, as it did last year. Until then, the General Debt Service Fund was making those payments, he noted.

The General Debt Service Fund's budget was also approved, with little discussion other than the discussion that took place during a presentation about the county's bond debt, which this fund covers. (Please see related article on Page ??)

Mayor Broyles commended Kay Solomon Armstrong, the Clerk & Master of Chancery Court, for bringing the county's right to claim funds under the Unclaimed Property Act to his attention.

Armstrong said she is not sure how much money can be recovered in this way, but said she was told "as a courtesy" that at least $28,000 appeared to be "earmarked" for Greene County.

Armstrong said one source of this money comes when a delinquent property tax sale is held and the tax sale generates more than the delinquent tax debt, but the owner cannot be found.

In such instances, she said, the money is turned over to the state treasury, which holds it for a year.

After that time, if the owner still has not been located, then the county government can ask that the money be returned, minus an administrative fee that the state keeps. The money is then available for county use.

Armstrong pointed out that County Clerk David Thompson used this law a few years ago to recoup funds that had been due to the clerks' office for old cases.

In talking to Thompson, Armstrong said, she realized that her office had turned over more than $100,000 to the state and asked County Attorney Roger Woolsey to research how to get it back.

Now that the research has been done, Armstrong suggested that the county consider applying "systematically, every calendar year."

Broyles said that is a good idea, and said he "certainly appreciated ... you coming to me, Kay, so we could get the process rolling."

Late in the meeting, the mayor asked county officials who had sat through the meeting if they had anything they wanted to say.

Greene County-Greeneville EMS Director Robert Sayne said he came mostly to give information about his department's staffing and overtime to Commissioner Cox after the meeting, but Commissioner Seay said the whole committee should hear it.

Cox was concerned about the $800,000 for overtime and part-time work appropriated for the department.

Sayne said the department has 42 paramedics and EMTs who work 24-hour shifts. In the past, he said, the former budget director mistakenly was calculating their pay based on a 96-hour pay period, but that has been corrected and a 12-hour pay period is used, with 80 hours paid at regular time and 40 hours at overtime.

Sayne said the department works 120,960 regular hours per year and 33,600 overtime hours if no extra shifts are required, which he said works out to $1,209,600 in regular pay and $504,000 for overtime pay. The remaining $300,000 is for part time people needed to cover vacation days and sick days and other situations, he said.

Sayne said the need for overtime money is exacerbated right now by one employee who will be on military leave for six months, and another who has been out for a year-and-a-half on worker's compensation, and is still out.

Cox expressed criticism of the 24-hour work schedule, as he has in the past.

Sayne said that, four years ago, he and others tried to figure out a way to go to 12-hour shifts, like the Sheriff's Department, but determined then that the change would require hiring "no less than 12" additional employees, at a cost of at least $500,000, which he said the budget director "frowned on."

Commissioner Phil King asked Sayne, "Could you get that many qualified people?"

Sayne said that is a good question, and the answer is probably no.

Sayne also said he and Assistant EMS Director Calvin Hawkins are working on an idea, possibly for the 2010-11 budget year, that they think may help reduce overtime and retain paramedics by restructuring the way non-emergency ambulance calls are handled.

Cox said he believes that "the right answer" is to hire an outside consultant.

King asked if that would be "free," triggering laughter.

Sayne said he already makes use of a consultant who works for the company that provides EMS billing software, and his services have not cost the county anything.

Sayne said that Greene County is staffing "the way that most services" do, other than for-profit services.

County Sheriff Steve Burns said he has a staffing methods manual that explains virtually every method in use, and Sayne can have access to it.

Mayor Broyles said, "I do feel we have a quality ambulance service."

Sayne thanked him and noted, "The state recognizes us as a Class A ambulance service," the top rating, in part because a paramedic goes on 95 percent of all calls, or more.

The committee also heard briefly from Michelle Keffer of Tennessee Vocational Rehabilitation in Greeneville, and Susan Arwood, regional supervisor with the Tennessee Division of Rehabilitation Services, who oversees several TRCs in northeast Tennessee.

Arwood again told the committee that loss of the $32,500 that the county contributes to the Tennessee Rehabiltiation Center (TRC) in Greeneville "will close us down," as The Greeneville Sun has previously reported.

Arwood asked if there is any way that the TRC can be considered separately from non-profit agencies. Arwood said the county's $32,500 "buys $1.5 million" in local spending, mostly in federal dollars that the local money triggers.

Keffer pointed out that the TRC is currently funded by the United Way and the Greeneville government, but Arwood noted that "we have the city funding only because we have the county funding." Arwood said she has been told that, if the county money is lost, the city money will also be lost.

Arwood had earlier said that, even with the city money, the center would have to close, since it would lose roughly half of its funding because local money is more than matched by federal money.

"We wanted to plead our case," Arwood said. "We are a non-profit agency, but we do generate money for the county."

If the TRC is closed here, she said, its 12 staff members would be relocated elsewhere in the 12-county area she supervises.

Arwood said the center could stand the 6 percent cut initially proposed.

Cox told the two women that the committee realizes that the program they run, rehabilitating disabled people and placing them in productive jobs, "is good and necessary, but the revenue we have doesn't even supply the needs of this county."

Anything beyond services that the county is required to provide "is going to have to come from the undesignated balance, which Cox called "our savings account."

Cox said he believes that most commissioners believe, as he does, "that we'll find a way."

Mayor Broyles said Cox had "a valid point, and indicated that he too believes that a way will be found to fund the Rehabilitation Center, but not by the usual way.