Warren County government budget discussions have fallen behind schedule.
“We will not make July,” said Finance Department director Linda Hillis. “It will be August before the consolidated budget will be presented to the full commission.”
Per the itinerary, the consolidated budget and recommendation on property tax rate was supposed to be under consideration by the Warren County Commission during its July 17 meeting. However, committees have not finished reviewing departmental budgets and Hillis needs those complete in order to calculate the county’s financial bottom line for further review prior to commission consideration. 
The information was given last week when the county Budget and Finance Committee met Tuesday and Thursday to review numerous budgets, including Administrative, Animal Control, Veterans Services, Clerk and Master, Drug Court, School Cafeteria, Finance Department, Building Maintenance, Highway Department, Election Commission, Property Assessor, Trustee, Judicial Commissioners, Airport, Rescue Squad, Codes Department, Health Department, Circuit Court Clerk, Juvenile Court, and nonprofit requests.
Now that those have been complete, Hillis said she could now begin the process to consolidate and bring that information back to the Budget and Finance Committee so consideration can be given to making additional changes and recommending a property tax rate for the year.
Changes will still be made to some budgets as Commissioner Terry Bell expressed his desire to revisit the $4 an hour salary increase for Judicial Commissioner Jim Hartman.
“I would like to take another look at it,” said Bell. “I just went with the recommendation from Policy and Personnel.”
That statement was made during review of the proposed budget for the Codes Department. Within it, director Richard Thompson requested a salary increase from $32,860 to $42,500, a request that was rejected.