Committee leaves compensation up to individual members

Bedford County Financial Management Committee members said Tuesday night that it should be an individual decision, not a county policy, if members of county boards and committees want to give up their pay.

Earlier this month, Bill Lewis of Bedford County Solid Waste Authority repeated his challenge to members of county boards and committees to give up their compensation due to the tight economy and its effect on county budgets.

Commissioner J.D. "Bo" Wilson said that in some cases, state law requires that officials be paid. He recalled an occasion when he suggested commissioners forego a month's pay to contribute to a high school athletic team's out-of-state trip, since the commission had decided not to use budget funds to pay for it. Another commissioner slipped him a note saying it would be illegal not to pay the commission. Commissioners could always receive their check and then turn around and contribute it to the cause, but it had to be paid as required by state law.

School superintendent Ed Gray said that paying board and committee members helps encourage attendance and responsiility. He said he learned as a principal that coaches who got a supplement for coaching took their jobs more seriously than those who did it on a strictly volunteer basis.

The committee took no formal action on Lewis's request.

County finance director Robert Daniel told the Times-Gazette earlier this month that it would be hard to put a figure on how much would be saved if committees were not paid because some members who receive payment do not have a regular meeting schedule.

For example, beer board members are paid $50 per meeting and members of the board of zoning appeals get $25, but those groups only gather when necessary.

Daniel said that last year, a total of $14,725 was paid to members of the county's road board, election commission, beer board, planning commission, board of zoning appeals and Financial Management Committee.

In other action Tuesday night:

* The committee awarded a bid for jail inmate health care to the low bidder, Southern Health Partners. The county believes it can save $25,000 per year by outsourcing the care. It cost the county $225,000 to provide it in-house, while the Southern Health Partners bid was $200,000.

Daniel is still researching catastrophic insurance coverage for major medical costs involving inmates.

* After a complele re-bid of a roofing project at the Bedford Home Health building on Union Street, the committee awarded the contract to the low bidder, Two Rivers Roofing of Madison, for $19,770.

* The committee recommended approval of budget amendments for the school system, the county general fund, the special purpose fund and the debt service fund, although the committee wants more information about a $266,482 homeland security grant to be available by the time the full county commission votes on the amendments next month. No information about the grant, or how the money will be spent, was immediately available Tuesday night.

* During a discussion of monthly financial reports, some finance committee members questioned the need for Bedford County Emergency Medical Services to have a board of directors now that some of the bidding and purchasing decisions once made by the board have been taken over by the county finance department.

--Staff writer Brian Mosely contributed to this story.