The Morgan County Commissioners approved approximately 8 budget transfers Monday morning.
The transfers were covered from a surplus in the county’s IMRF funds budget.
The largest two transfers were for MCS Community Services and to cover costs of services at the Morgan County Detention facility.
Commissioner Chair Ginny Fanning says that MCS is currently awaiting grants that didn’t fall in proper line with the county fiscal year’s timing: “It’s not necessarily that they were shorted grant money. It’s the timing of it. They haven’t received what they were told they would be getting. Our fiscal year ends August 31st, and so, they are anticipating it coming but just hadn’t made it in our cycle.”
Fanning says the fund transfer in the county budget for the Morgan County Jail mostly dealt with rising costs to operate the jail itself: “It was mostly services that were over [budget], and that probably, maybe has to do with some of the added expenses they’ve had. Their utilities have gone up quite a bit. They also have had some new purchases of vehicles. Those had to be equipped. Equipping those vehicles is obviously an added expense. That was something that when budget time came around last year, we weren’t sure if that was going to come to fruition or not. As a matter of fact, it did and we, of course, had to cover those expenses.”
She says that current renovation under way at the jail may help with some of the rising utility costs, as they do hope to replace and/or fix some of the HVAC system.
The remaining 6 unspecified transfers were deemed as being minor.