The hearing offered the public an opportunity to voice their support and concerns on a budget of $95.7 million established during last month’s budget meetings.

The only person to address the council was Hamilton County resident Mark Hall.

During his time at the podium, Hall questioned the council’s decision to provide $240,000 in cash for the Youth Assistance Program.

“My challenge is the unrestricted $240,000 allocated to them with no accountability,” said Hall.

The cash was agreed upon after council members originally denied the organization funding for three full-time employees.

Councilman Steve Schwartz said, “Looking back, I made the motion for the three employees, each of them to go from part-time to full-time. That is what I am really after.”

“The idea behind the $240,000 was so that they could go and find a different way to get their employees. In the perfect world, I would really like those people to go from part-time to full-time.”

Council President Brad Beaver said, “I’m in favor of the Youth Assistance Program. I support what they do. What I don’t support is forming another department in county government.”

Beaver continued, “We already supply them with two full-time employees paid for out of the county general fund. What they were asking for was three more full-time employees. That would be five youth assistance full-time employees on the county payroll.”

The Youth Assistance Program is a public/private partnership and is not a division of Hamilton County government.

“I don’t want another county department. If you are successful then be successful, please don’t ask us to add another department to the county. Once you have five employees then you are going to need some office space, how about a couple cars, let’s get a secretary … it’s another department. I don’t want YAP to be a county department. That is why I voted against the three full-time employees,” concluded Beaver.

Councilman Ken Alexander said, “I believe it would be cheaper if we did the personnel decision as opposed to the unrestricted $240,000. If we could go back and make a change, I would be 100 percent behind that today.”

A motion was then made by Councilwoman Amy Massillamany to reverse the council’s decision on providing the cash funding and now provide the three full-time employees originally requested by the organization.

The motion passed 4-3 with Fred Glynn, Rick McKinney and Beaver voting no. Hern, Alexander, Schwartz and Massillamany voted in favor.

Each of the three YAP employees will receive a salary of $50,910, plus benefits.

Coroner to get salary increase

As part of the Hamilton County Council’s budget hearing in August, council members reviewed elected officials’ salaries. Of those salaries, Coroner John Chalfin’s pay came into question.

During the budget deliberations in August a motion was made to provide Chalfin with a nearly $30,000 raise, bringing his salary up to par with other elected county officials. Chalfin currently makes $69,271. The next lowest salary of an elected county official is approximately $97,000.

Chalfin’s salary increase was denied in August; however, during Wednesday’s public hearing on the proposed 2020 budget, a motion made by Councilman Steve Schwartz increasing the Coroner’s pay to $80,000 forced the seven council members to once again review the two-term Coroner’s salary.

“This is setting dangerous precedent,” said Councilman Fred Glynn. “We go through every department head and elected official and we vote on it. I understand your concern, but then we have people come here and say I don’t like what you decided at budget hearing. That should not be how this works. We made a decision and that should be the end of it.”

Glynn continued, “If we do this, next year we will have four to five department heads coming here saying I don’t like the fact you didn’t give me the raise I wanted, I want you to vote on that again.”

Schwartz’s motion to increase Chalfin’s pay passed with a 4-3 vote. Ken Alexander, Jeff Hern, Schwartz and Amy Massillamany voted in favor of the increase. Rick McKinney, Fred Glynn and Brad Beaver voted against the increase.