Commissioners divided on budget approval | Yadkin Ripple

In the first split vote among Yadkin County Commissioners in recent memory, the board voted 4-1 to approve the county’s 2021-22 budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1.

The point of contention came in a last-minute amendment made by Vice Chairman David Moxley. Moxley’s amendment cut a proposed $10,000 annual stipend for the assistant director of parks and recreation and also cut a proposed new deputy fire marshal position. The value of the two cuts equals a miniscule portion — less than a quarter of 1% — of the county’s overall $38 million general fund spending plan.

Moxley proposed his amendment with no explanation at the time, which came after County Manager Lisa Hughes detailed the highlights of the budget, including her presentation of the two items in the amendment. The opposing commissioners offered no discussion on those topics when Hughes presented the items.

Commissioner Gilbert Hemric seconded Moxley’s motion to approve the budget with the amendment, and the 4-1 vote tallied Moxley, Hemric, Marion Welborn and Frank Zachary in favor. Chairman Kevin Austin voted against it.

After the meeting adjourned, Moxley told The Ripple that he had discussed his planned amendment with commissioners individually prior to the meeting, but he had not discussed it with Hughes or other town employees who had designed the budget proposal. He said he was in favor of potentially adding spending for part-time staff to help with fire marshal duties but did not see a full time deputy fire marshal position as necessary.

“I have reviewed the number of cases that they investigate and the number of inspections that they do, and I don’t feel that we need to add a new position at this time,” Moxley said.

Regarding nixing the stipend for the assistant parks and rec director, he said the timing was off. Hughes proposed the stipend because the assistant director has begun learning soil and water district duties to assist parks and recreation director Jason Walker. Walker plans to retire in five years, Hughes said, and they are grooming the assistant director, who is an hourly-paid employee, to step into the role.

“We have done stipends in the past, but from my recollection it has always been for salaried staff,” Moxley said. “I just felt like five years, that was a long time to be learning that job, so maybe in a couple years we might look at that again.”

Austin said he voted no because he was in favor of the budget as it had been proposed by Hughes, including the new fire marshal position and the stipend.

“I probably should have attempted an amendment, but I could see on the faces of the rest of the board what they wanted to do, so I just let them do it and I voted no,” Austin said. “No budget is perfect and nobody gets what they want in a budget. I would have loved to lower the tax rate, but that wasn’t in the cards this year.”

Hughes said the proposed stipend was not for taking on future duties but for the expansion of duties the assistant director has already taken on.

“That was compensation for work he is already doing,” she said.

In the budget proposal distributed weeks ago to commissioners, Hughes and her team detailed the request for the deputy fire marshal position, stating that the county has 1,604 businesses requiring inspection every 6 months to 3 years. Currently, 321 inspections are out of date and 572 locations were never inspected prior to 2010. The number of fires in the county is on the rise, the proposal said, adding that state law dictates how fires are to be investigated and by whom. Investigations can take four hours to four months or longer. The team wrote that the new position would “ensure that more buildings/businesses throughout the county are safe and investigations are conducted in a timely manner.”

Following adjournment of the meeting, Austin departed but the other four commissioners remained and began discussing the approved amendments with Hughes. When the group asked whether the reporter from The Ripple would be leaving the room, the reporter declined to leave the public space. The commissioners then quickly departed.