Dispatch board uses reserves to meet budget

Nevada Daily Mail

The West Missouri 911 Dispatch board discussed its budget for 2015 and ways to balance it at a special work session on Tuesday.

"It gets a little more painful every year," Nevada City Manager JD Kehrman said of the budgeting process.

Despite careful management and control of expenditures over the past year, the organization still faced a significant shortfall looking at the upcoming year, which had a total budget of approximately $500,000.

"It really comes down to whether or not we want to force a budget we know we can get by with or take the chance and see if we can come up with money in the middle of the year." Vernon County Sheriff Jason Mosher said of the situation. "I think that's our only two options."

Not allowed to adopt a budget beyond the organization's fund balance, the board brought the budget down to equal the sum of the contributions from entities such as Vernon County, the city of Nevada and Vernon County Ambulance District by cutting proposed increases on some of the benefits, leaving one of the two vacancies open and using the $35,000 in reserve from 2014.

With those cuts and others they made at a previous meeting such as to training and supplies, the board predicts about $5,000 in reserve at the end of 2015.

"This isn't the end of the world," Kehrman said, despite the difficulty in balancing the budget and cuts made.

While the board said they would prefer not to use the 2014 reserves, Kehrman said that was their only option and it would give them another year to explore other solutions for the future.

The board expressed their intention to reach out to the entities supporting them in the upcoming year to seek larger amounts of financial support in order to prevent shortfalls in future years.

But even then, Kehrman said changes still need to be made in the future for the dispatch to continue operating at the level it has been.

"This is not a sustainable funding model," Kehrman said, although he pointed out they have been responsible with the money given them while carefully controlling and monitoring how those funds are spent.

The board will vote on the amended budget Friday.

In other business, the board voted unanimously to accept a nominated individual from VCAD to occupy the open seat on the board.