During the Financial Management’s December meeting Monday morning, community member Roy Livingston inquired into the process by which county budgets are put together and overseen.

Livingston’s concern, he said, was due to what he perceived as a lack of financial oversight on the county’s money.

“So far, you have no oversight on the Sheriff’s Department,” he said.

He said he was concerned that the budget reports the county sends to the state would not mean much if the county can modify that budget whenever it pleases, specifically pointing to efforts to set pay raises and pay scales in many different departments, including the school system.

Brad Johnson countered by saying there are essentially four tiers of oversight within the county as it is, since everything budget related has to go through the individual committee, then Budget committee, then the full commission and then the state, all the while Finance Director Brad Burke oversees all of it and determines what can and cannot be done.

“It is well-watched, and so far, no one has proven otherwise,” Johnson said.

On top of this, the committee said, the pay scales and wages, particularly within the school system, are being done within clearly marked line items and money already in the system, so their overall numbers are not changing compared to what the state sees.

The committee continued discussions about award recognition procedure and how best to recognize and award long-time employees of the county.

When commissioners suggested a series of pins commemorating five-year intervals of service, Ginger Holdren echoed sentiments from other commissioners that what they do now is not enough.

“I do not want a freaking pin,” Holdren said. “Let’s give them money.”

The committee discussed gift cards or even adding certain amounts to Christmas bonuses at the end of the year. Johnson said the latter idea could be explored more in depth during their county employee salary RFP process in the coming months.

“There is not enough being done for recognition in this county,” he said.

Several months after beginning a research project into county financial records to determine bonus policies following Planning Director Chris Schuettler’s $14,466 bonus, Burke said he has had no time to get anything together, so he had nothing to present on the subject this month.

“I have not had any time this month to work on it,” Burke said. “I will have something next month.”

In the meantime, Burke said the county is currently enrolled in the amnesty program in response to the 600 to 7000 old checks that never made it to the state, which they are currently in the process of returning.

He said they have a deadline in March to get those in, and said they should get them in to the state well before that.