Excise Board reviews 2022-23 budget needs

The Osage County Excise Board on Nov. 4 approved an estimate of financial needs for the current county fiscal year, which continues through June 30, 2023.

County officials acknowledged their cost estimates were to some extent inflated. One area where inflated figures were admittedly used was the cost of employee health insurance. District 1 Commissioner Randall Jones said that the inflation of the health insurance cost estimates – by more than $300 per month for many county employees -- could result in a Sheriff's Office budget that is inflated by more than $350,000. The approximate figure Jones used in the discussion was $384,000.

County Clerk Robin Slack said the same type of overestimation of potential health insurance premium costs would be true of other departmental budgets, as well. Jones responded that the cost of health insurance for employees of county road maintenance operations in the three commissioner districts would not be included in the cost estimate inflation. Jones noted that health insurance premiums for road maintenance employees are not paid out of the county General Fund, but are paid out of road maintenance money that the county receives based on sources such as gross production taxes and fuel taxes.

The Sheriff's Office also acknowledged its estimate of its fuel expense needs for 2022-23 is based on fuel prices at the peak of a spike in prices several months ago, not fuel prices now or fuel prices estimated by any market expert for the coming months.

Another aspect of the Sheriff's Office budget that received attention Friday was a plan to buy 18 new vehicles, with a view toward trading them in three years later. Deputy Ronnie Stevens told the Excise Board it might only be possible to buy 15 new vehicles with the more than $300,000 requested for the vehicle acquisition plan due to recent increases in vehicle prices.

There was some disagreement regarding how much the Sheriff's Office planned to spend per vehicle. Jones did some quick math and suggested the Sheriff's Office was looking to pay about $63,000 per vehicle over the three-year life of lease-purchase deal.

Stevens responded, saying he thought the per-vehicle cost would actually be about $52,000 -- $40,000 per vehicle, plus another $12,000 for upgrades. Stevens, who said the new vehicles are to be purchased as part of a program to provide safer, more professional-looking transportation for Sheriff's Office personnel, told the Excise Board members that field-operations deputies drive about 30,000 to 36,000 miles annually.

Stevens and Sheriff Eddie Virden promoted the vehicle acquisition plan to the Excise Board in considerable measure based on the expectation that the 18 (or 15) vehicles will have trade-in value after three years that will help cut the price of future vehicle purchases. Excise Board member Berry Keeler attempted to obtain figures from Sheriff's Office representatives regarding the anticipated trade-in value "savings" but the Sheriff's Office did not offer any figures, either written or oral.