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Commissioners correct budget, approve ‘salary modifications
By Justin Goble
County commissioners Monday night (Oct. 6) unanimously approved a “salary modification” for 34 county employees.
According to county Manager Ken Westmoreland, the measure was needed due to “clerical errors” in the published budget.
“What happened was that the published budget that came out a week or several days before we gave final approval had clerical errors in terms of salaries,” he said. “Those salaries were incorrectly drafted. So we had to correct them and pay those people what we said we would.”
Officials discussed the issue in closed session for nearly 20 minutes. Westmoreland said the closed session was needed since specific employees were named in the discussions.
“The people who were affected weren’t department heads,” he said. “We had to name those that were affected while discussing their salaries.”
However, according to state law, salaries of all government employees are public record.
According to Commissioner Tom Massie, the modification will mainly be for employees in the Social Services, Health Department and 911 offices.
“Those weren’t things we’d have to make budget adjustments to,” he said. “It was just a kind of technicality to adjust. In these cases, these were positions that had some extra responsibilities.”
In other business Oct. 6:
– Commissioners unanimously approved a $63,336 contract with Construction Control Corp., a company that assists governments with planning and managing construction projects.
Lee McClure, a representative of the company, spoke to commissioners Sept. 23. He said then that the company assists public bodies with construction services and recommended a project supervisor be on hand to help county officials two days a week.
McClure said the company would make sure county projects come in under budget and claimed his firm typically save government entities between 10 and 15 percent on construction projects.
“I don’t think we’ve ever failed to save at least our own fee,” he told commissioners last month.
Massie Monday night said he thought the county could save even more by having Construction Control representatives look at projects the county has in mind while they are in the planning phases.
“They can tell us if there’s alternatives out there for our construction projects that get the same quality results for less money,” he said.
– Westmoreland announced that the county had received a “certificate of satisfaction” from the Economic Development Commission for the Tuckaseigee Mills property.
According to the Westmoreland, the certificate forgives a $568,000 debt that the county took on when it accepted the assets of the Jackson Development Corp., the property-owning offshoot of the EDC, last year. The JDC was a non-profit corporation created by the EDC, which cannot by law own property.
“The EDC made a loan to the JDC of $568,000 for that property,” Westmoreland said. “It was recorded as a note. When they transferred the property to us last year, that note had never been satisfied. The JDC never paid it. Consequently, it was still recorded in the register of deeds office as an outstanding note. We never had clear title. The county had been asking the EDC to give us a certificate of satisfaction for that. They indicated that they were going to forgive that loan when they turned over the certificate, which they just got around to doing.”
Along with Tuckaseigee Mills, JDC turned over titles to the Whittier Industrial Park properties and 10 acres adjacent to the former Buster Brown plant.
In other business Monday:
– Benjamin Woods was unanimously reappointed to the Solid Waste Board, while Ed Henson and Jeff Zonner were unanimously reappointed to the Cashiers Area Planning Council.
– Sylva resident Marie Leatherwood again spoke out against the EDC, saying the county needed to look into the board’s dealings.
One thing she took commissioners to task on was allowing EDC members to give its Sylva representatives two votes on the board, the same number as the county.
“The people in the 30th Judicial District have prided themselves in upholding the law of the land,” she said. “I talked with District Attorney Mike Bonfoey, who said he would talk with the board of commissioners and give them my phone number to discuss the EDC with me. He did that, and county attorney Paul Holt, the husband of Sylva mayor and EDC member Brenda Oliver-Holt, called me to talk about the EDC. Brenda Oliver-Holt was a prior chairman on that board along with Dillsboro Mayor Jean Hartbarger. They took one of the county’s statutorily mandated three votes on the EDC board and set Sylva up with two votes.”
Cullowhee’s David Galloway also spoke out about the EDC, saying commissioners needed to look into the board’s financial dealings.
“Two members of the EDC board were members of the JDC board as well,” he said. “That’s a clear conflict of interest. The county also assumed $1.7 million in JDC debt for lands that were assessed at $1.5 million.”
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