Aging Cars, Overflowing Prisoners Wreck Budget

COFFEEVILLE – Wore out patrol cars and an overflow of prisoners were identified as problems as county officials closed out the 2013-14 fiscal year on Tuesday.
    The county’s new fiscal year gets underway on October 1, and supervisors annually make final amendments a day before the new year gets underway.
    Sheriff Lance Humphreys had several line items where his spending had exceeded the amount budgeted during the last year, but the news did not come as a surprise as he had braced supervisors for the overages during the year.  Speaking two months ago, the sheriff said his gas budget had been calculated for several years estimating the gallon of gas around $2.50 per gallon.         This pushed his gas budget almost $20,000 over the amount budgeted.
    An extra $20,000 was added to his budget for the 2014-15 fiscal year, which Humphreys said would be adequate.
    Humphreys had also spent $16,000 more than budgets on vehicle repair, another problem he had identified earlier in the year. Speaking Tuesday, Hum-phreys said his fleet of cruisers all have in excess of 200,000 miles with the exception of two vehicles.
    As for prisoners, Humphreys’ 24-capacity jail has been overflowing with prisoners, accounting for overages in both feeding and health care costs for the inmates. The total jail budget was over almost $14,000.