×
×
homepage logo

Letters: County budgetary concerns, A tribute to a friend

By Staff | Jan 16, 2002

County budgetary concerns

To the editor:

The Leavenworth County 2001 budget amendment is the latest example of how the county commission cannot manage a $38,125,738 budget. The budget amendment is required so that expenditures are made in compliance with the state cash basis law, which makes it unlawful for county expenditures to exceed available revenues.

The county commission needed to amend the Health Department Fund and Employee Benefit Fund 2001 budgets to reflect increased expenditures. To balance the 2001 budgets the budget amendment increased revenues in these two funds.

But, even with increased revenues the 2001 budgets for these funds are still not in balance because the county commission failed to account for the actual 2000 budget carryover in both funds. In the Health Department Fund, the county commission reported a $66,355 carryover from 2000. The actual 2000 carryover was negative $22,657, so after the 2001 budget amendment there is a $88,673 deficit in the Health Department Fund. In the Employee Benefit Fund, the county commission again failed to use the actual 2000 carryover, so there is a $6,412 deficit. The 2001 budgets of both funds violates the state cash basis law expenditures exceed revenues. This is the second consecutive year that the county commission has violated the cash basis law in the Health Department Fund.

The commission is responsible for developing and managing the county budget. The errors in the 2001 budget amendment are the latest examples of how the commission is incapable of managing the budget. Leavenworth County needs a professional county administrator to help the commission manage the county’s business.

David A. Greenamyre,

Leavenworth.

A tribute to a friend

To the editor:

We wrote this poem about our friend, Jean.

My friend was someone special.

She was only “one of a kind,”

A city girl who loved country life.

Another like her you’ll never find.

Always a smile to greet you

For her the day had no end

Ambitious to continue the project

A true and considerate friend.

When a friend in need of help

To Jean there was no “wait ’til tomorrow.”

Always the first to lend a hand

We now are left with her death and our sorrow.

Carefully planting the bushes

Flowers blooming all around

Just to beautify the neighborhood

In this friendly, robust town.

Always concerned and considerate of others

Until the very end.

We miss and mourn her loss

Because she was our friend.

She always had a special place within our family

We think of her in silence and make no outward show.

But what it meant to lose her

No one will ever know.

Asa Kesinger,

Tonganoxie.

Darlene (Kesinger) Jones,

Harlingen, Texas.