Union County Quorum Court held their last meeting of the year Thursday, where they approved ordinances and discussed various requests from county offices and their officials.
They first appropriated funds for an ordinance that passed in November, which approved a payroll bonus for full-time Union County employees.
The ordinance listed county departments and included how much money was given in bonuses for each department. The ordinance appropriating the funds was unanimously passed, with only Justice Cliff Preston being absent from the meeting.
Union County Judge Mike Loftin requested changing the operating hours of the Union County Courthouse to 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m, Monday through Friday. Currently the operating hours for the courthouse are 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The request was approved by the quorum, with the new operating hours going into effect on Jan. 2.
Karen Scott, Union County tax collector-elect asked the quorum for permission to conduct an independent audit on the tax collector’s office.
The quorum voted yes to the audit, which Justice Mike Dumas said could cost $10,000 or more.
Scott was unable to be contacted before press time for comment Thursday.
In other business, two ordinances were presented by the Quorum Court concerning Union County Sheriff Ricky Roberts, who asked for additional money for 2018 and to correct the county jail budget for 2019.
Roberts said he was notified that their budget for 2018 was short, and after reviewing the 2018 budget, realized they had not included holiday pay. The ordinance correcting the error appropriated the sum of about $75,000, which was made up of about $28,000 for salaries and about $47,000 in insurance reimbursement.
Roberts took full responsibly for the error, adding that he should have caught the mistake.
He added that they also did not include holiday pay for the 2019 budget, which resulted in an additional ordinance having to be passed, totaling about $34,000 for the 2019 budget.
Justice Cecil Polk said he liked the way Roberts presented the information on a spreadsheet, which displayed his employee’s positions and what their hourly and yearly wages were.
“When we’re looking at finance and we’re looking at possible raises, this is nice when you’re seeing what people make an hour and overall annually,” Polk said. “I think we need to see this because that helps us when it comes to looking at pay raises.”
Later during the meeting, the quorum discussed possible raises for county employees, to which Dumas suggested having a special meeting with the Quorum Court finance committee.
Polk added that he would like a breakdown of each department and their position’s hourly and annual wages. “That will help us tremendously,” Polk said.
Justice Johnny Burson added that he agreed that the finance committee needed to meet, specifically to look at the mandatory minimum wage increase, which will increase to $9.25 state-wide on Jan. 1.
The quorum agreed to have a special finance committee meeting in January before the next quorum court meeting, which will be held on Jan. 17.
Kaitlyn Rigdon can be reached at 870-862-6611 or [email protected].