Vance County Manager C. Renee Perry said that her $64.3 million proposed budget presented to commissioners last week had some missing information, which prompted a line-by-line review of the numbers to create a revised budget.
The revised budget seems to be about $600,000 more than the original budget, coming in at $64,933,833.
“I know errors happen, but I hated for this to happen,” Perry told WIZS News. ”There was an issue with the data transfer from one spreadsheet to the next, and some of the expenditures and some of the requests did not make it in my budget,” she explained.
Perry said she and her team used a different process with the spreadsheets used to create the budget and “when we merged the data, we didn’t catch that some of the departments’ recommendations were missing, so it threw my numbers off.”
Perry said “something was on my mind” after the Monday, May 5th presentation to commissioners, and when she started looking through the spreadsheets, she realized something was missing.
She emailed commissioners first thing the next day, Tuesday morning May 6, to inform them of the issue.
“As soon as I was aware, I made them aware,” she said.
Perry said she and her team reviewed the budget over the last week, “making sure that we budgeted properly and that what I’m presenting to the commissioners are the things that they need to consider. I don’t want to go after July 1 and realize, ‘Oh, my God!’ we don’t have money for that,” she said.
“I need to present what we need for fiscal year 25-26 in its entirety, and I did not do that (at the Monday meeting). I’m taking full accountability, being transparent…to be able to present what I need to present to my commissioners.”
The revised budget was posted on the county’s website this Wednesday, May 14, giving commissioners a week to review before the scheduled May 20 budget work session.
The public hearing on the budget remains scheduled on June 2 at the regular monthly commissioners’ meeting.
If you happened to notice the first scheduled budget work session for this past Monday, May 12th, was cancelled. This is the reason why.
In Perry’s cover letter to the budget presented to commissioners, she wrote:
“With all funds balanced and revenues and expenditures noted, this budget will not only meet statutory requirements but primarily seek to move Vance County forward in the next fiscal year by continuing to address needs within our infrastructure, services, and targeting opportunities of growth to capitalize on the inherent strengths of the communities across the County. The following message will outline points of emphasis and funding within the budget and highlight characteristics of the County that point toward continued strength and growth.”
The manager’s proposed budget does not include an increase nor a decrease in the general fund property tax rate of .7129 per $100 in value. The budget does not include an increase nor a decrease to 5.94 cents fire tax rate.
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