Saline still struggles with budget

The Saline County budget is still under discussion after the meeting held at Saline County Court House Wednesday night.

The budget has been on display to the public for the last 15 days and Wednesday's meeting was to be the night it was passed. But several office holders are not satisfied with the budgeted money for their prospective offices. State's Attorney Michael Henshaw was there to say his piece about what the proposed budget means for the county as a whole.

"We will be forced to close our offices," Henshaw said. "Come May to mid-June we will be out of money."

According to Henshaw, with the proposed allotted money for the state's attorney's office, the only way it could continue to run would be to remove all staff.

"How as a county can we turn away people who need our service," Henshaw said. "Drug Dealers in this county, out number the city officials."

In December, according to Henshaw, the state's attorneys office raised $26,000 in fines. And as it stands right now there are 293 pending misdemeanor cases awaiting to be tried. The financial issue is not having enough staff to try the cases.

A solution, proposed by Henshaw, would be to hire another public defender and bring in a third judge to hold cases in the small court room located inside the Saline County Detention Center. Public defenders bring in an additional $250 per case as revenue.

Decisions were not made. But the county board is willing to move forward with viable ideas and solutions.

"We made the cuts that were made based on the fact that there is no reserve and no previous year's tax money," said Joe Jackson, head of the finance committee. "We are out of money."

After hearing the arguments presented to them by Henshaw and a few comments made by Randy Nyberg, county circuit clerk, the board decided to postpone the vote to approve the budget another week and seek areas of possible revenue that may have been missed.

A side note was brought up during the discussion by Bruce Tolley, board member and head of the judicial and law committee.

"More than one felony a day is committed in Saline County on average, that should tell you something about our position," Tolly said.