Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 16, 1991 TAG: 9104160022
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The proposed 1991-92 Pulaski County budget, that's what.
With its documentation, charts, illustrations, worksheets and other materials, it takes a giant notebook with rings 2 1/2 inches in diameter just to contain it all.
Each member of the county Board of Supervisors got one of those notebooks at last week's budget presentation from County Administrator Joseph Morgan. With all its details, it is still far from finalized. Some of the supervisors wanted more cuts made, which will mean the administrative staff will be going back through all those documents, charts and so on to reassemble the figures.
Thank goodness for computers. They have yet to turn us into the paperless society that has been predicted, but at least they make changes easier when the next batch of papers are printed out.
One supervisor, Bruce Fariss, complained that he had just found his notebook in his mailbox on the day of the budget meeting, not giving him time to go through it thoroughly, he said. Of course, the fact that he has a huge guard dog at his home might explain why nobody brought it to his door and why it sat instead in his mailbox all weekend.
But, if the supervisors' budget notebooks were big, those of the Pulaski County School Board were bigger. That was the first thing Mason Vaughan, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, noticed when Superintendent William Asbury brought in the proposed school budget with its supporting documentation for next year.
"Your book's bigger than our book," Vaughan said.
"And we're going to give it to you page by page, just like the chairman asked us to," Asbury replied, smiling.
"I didn't ask you to do that," Vaughan said quickly, not smiling.
When Asbury had gone over the proposed school budget with his board in mid-March, he used slides to illustrate each part of it. The staff had changed the way some items are shown, to more clearly reflect income and expenses, and Asbury wanted his board to understand all that. The presentation lasted almost until midnight.
He told the supervisors he was going to give them an abbreviated version, without all the slides. Even that took about 90 minutes.
At the conclusion, Vaughan - who has seen a dozen school budget presentations during his years as a supervisor - called it a beautiful presentation. "And I want to tell you, after 12 years, I don't miss the slides," he added.
by CNB