Chairman Ricky Gamble was in agreement with moving money out of contingency.

LIVE OAK — The Suwannee County Board of County Commissioners approved an $84.7 million tentative budget at a public hearing Thursday night.

But not until after a few tweaks and maneuvering within the proposed budget were completed.

While the budget total of $84,737,635 did not change in the hearing, County Administrator Randy Harris did have a few proposed changes that the board approved moving some of the money around within departments.

The board also approved the tentative millage rate of 9.0000 mills, which is an 8.05 percent increase from the rolled-back rate of 8.3298 mills. The county’s millage rate has been 9 mills the past five years.

The final budget hearing will be held Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.

Among the changes Harris proposed to the board was a new sign truck for the road department. Harris said the current truck may not even make it through the month and into the next fiscal year.

“It’s really, honestly, the shop says it might now make it another 2-3 weeks,” Harris said. “That truck’s on the road all day, every day all over the county.

“It is really shot.”

The board approved moving money to fund the purchase of a replacement truck at a cost of $35,000 from the contingency fund.

Harris also asked the board to set aside $50,000 to the road department’s budget for the possibility of overages on the hours used on the county’s leased road graders.

He said the graders are all pushing the 1,500-hour limit in the lease agreement this year and with more chip seal project planned for next year, should a storm hit Suwannee County, it is certain that some will go over.

Harris told the board that they will only pay for the hours used in 125-hour blocks, so the full $50,000 may not be needed.

“We’ve been swapping graders back and forth trying to maximize our hours on all of them without going over,” he said, adding the county has already negotiated the hourly rate of about $13 per hour, which is the same as the current lease rate.

The board discussed the possibility of looking into adding an additional grader in the budget in the future to the current 14 graders already in use.

The board also approved a salary increase for two positions, one is dump truck driver position, and the other for collection site attendants. Harris said the positions have become revolving doors with employees leaving for higher-paying jobs.

Harris said seven of the eight dump truck drivers currently employed by the county have been there less than a year, adding that some have remained for just a few weeks to less than a week.

The board approved a raise for both positions in addition to the raises for county employees already budgeted but only in moving the money from within the current budget, rather than dipping into the county’s contingency fund.

The board will vote on waiving a one-year requirement for raises for those positions during Tuesday’s regular meeting.

Prior to the board’s vote on the budget, Commissioner Larry Sessions recommended moving the majority of the contingency fund and placing it into the capital outlay reserves in order to make it less accessible for the board to spend.

“I’d like to take it and put it somewhere a little safer since this last year we pretty well spent everything we had in contingency,” Sessions said, proposing moving $400,000 of the $713,834 in the contingency fund in the proposed budget.

Chairman Ricky Gamble said he too had thought about that as well.

The board had dipped considerably into the contingency fund to purchase property on Goldkist Blvd. near the Suwannee County Agricultural Coliseum and fairgrounds as well as for property purchases for the utility installation at the Interstate 75 and County Road 136 interchange.

“It was all moving the county in the direction we want to go with economic development,” Gamble said. “It wasn’t misspent.”

The board decided to move $500,000 from contingency, leaving $213,834, while the new balance in the reserve account for Capital Outlay projects is now $1,828,747.

The board also approved during the hearing to set the household assessment rate at $130 for solid waste collection, which is the current rate.

The assessment rates for fire protection also remained the same at $100 per dwelling for residential urban and 12 cents per square foot up to 179,400 square feet for non-residential. For land, the fire rate will also remain the same at $17.91 for less than 160 acres and a rate of 14 cents per acre for parcels more than 160 acres up to a maximum of 640 acres.