Moulder to “whittle down” the requests

If Oconee County Council were to approve all requests for funds in its next budget, total county spending would jump $10 million dollars. But that’s unlikely to happen. County Administrator Scott Moulder told a meeting of the county council budget committee he is in the process of whittling down the wants and the needs of the various department heads. There are some requests that council is apt to find it powerless to do anything about. Chief among them is the cost of the potential state requirement that Oconee hire an additional 16 correctional officers to staff the new jail. That cost alone, Moulder said, is $880 thousand dollars. Then there are some other parts of the budget for which members of the council are pushing—such as a grants writer for the county, an in-house attorney, along with a paralegal.