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Summit County Council Busy Reviewing Budget

Summit County Sheriff's Office

The Summit County Council is about two week away from the first public hearing on their proposed 2019 budget.

The Council has been reviewing budget requests from their departments.

In the meantime, Council member Doug Clyde says that the county manager has revised his earlier decision to suspend grants to nonprofits next year, because of a large grant to the Children’s Justice Center.

In October, County manager Tom Fisher notified some 17 organizations, including KPCW, that they wouldn’t get grant funding next year, since the county was giving $250,000 for a new Justice Center facility.

Since then, Clyde told us, they’ve heard from most of those nonprofits.

“We’ve met with some of them to discuss what it was that their needs are. The county manger has now come back with a revision to his previous statement. His previous statement was that we weren’t going to be able to fund any of those. He’s now come back with a revision of that statement that shows funding for I believe most of those organizations that have asked. Not everything that they want. As usually we don’t always get what we want.”

On Monday, the council held a special session where they continued hearing from their departments, whose budget requests have been vetted by a budget committee and county manager Fisher.

“Some of them got what they wanted. Some of them got part of what they wanted. Some of them didn’t get what they wanted. Now we are reviewing, as a council we are reviewing each one of those individual departments and we’re looking at what they asked for and what they got. Giving them the opportunity to say ‘Hey I didn’t get enough or I need this other piece of equipment or whatever it is.”

Among the departments, County Sheriff Justin Martinez is hoping for as many as ten new employees, in the long term. The manager’s recommendation this year was for two. The sheriff proposed a way he could get four new staffers for 2019.

“He actually said, look if you allow me one more full-time employee, I will actually be able to re-schedule all of my other workforce. I will end up then with a total of four. That is two that the budget committee gave him, one that we would then give him and then a fourth that he would then get through economies in his own scheduling. What this will allow him to do is to drop back from a 12-hour shift to a 10-hour shift and thereby he’ll be eliminating some overtime. So, there’s an economy actually in being able to give him more officers.”

Clyde said the council is leaning toward that proposal. The sheriff is looking for more patrol officers, and that’s a critical need.

“We’re seeing a lot more violence, a lot more arrests, a lot more concerns with our schools. All those things are changing in the news every day. There are times in which he will tell you where there are between two and three officers on duty county wide. Well you send one of those to Weber Canyon, one of them to Coalville and you’re pretty well spent. You don’t have time or ability to intercede in any other legal problem.”

The county manger is also calling for a cost-of-living increase, merit pay and improved health insurance for their employees. Clyde said they need to be competitive with other jurisdictions.

“This is a very unique county in that we have both an east side and a west side council. We have separate codes, we have separate general plans for both sides of the county. We have one community development director and one staff that I believe is smaller than Park Cities that is managing all of that. The problem that we have is that it is very important for not only from a legal point of view but from a customer service point of view that our codes, and policies and laws be up to date, understandable, comprehensible and consistent with our goals and objectives. Right now we are not doing a very good job of that.

Clyde also favors hiring another planner for Community Development. That isn’t called for because of new growth, but a need to update the county’s planning codes.

“We thought that a three-percent cost of living raise was appropriate given his analysis of what was going on in surrounding communities. Then we also authorized a merit raise, varying between zero and five percent. It has a cap on it, but we need to reward those employees who are doing an exceptional job.”

County Council member Doug Clyde, who said they have to balance the budget requests, with their need to build up their fund balance.

A public hearing for Snyderville is set for December 5th, followed by a second hearing, and decision, in Coalville on December 12th.

Known for getting all the facts right, as well as his distinctive sign-off, Rick covered Summit County meetings and issues for 35 years on KPCW. He now heads the Friday Film Review team.
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