By Ray King
Another meeting of the Jefferson County Quorum Court and another day with no progress on getting employees paid.
By a vote of 7 to 5, the Quorum Court rejected a bid by County Judge Gerald Robinson to get a just over $37-million 2025 budget passed after that budget was approved during a meeting of the Finance Committee.
At that same Finance Committee meeting, a 2025 budget that had been proposed by JP’s who would later vote no on the judge’s budget was tabled and not considered.
During the regular meeting, there was debate, primarily between Justice Alfred Carroll and Judge Robinson before Robinson called for the vote.
Voting no were Reginald Adams, Carroll, Melanie Dumas, Brenda Bishop Gaddy, Cedric Jackson, Reginald Johnson and Margarette Williams while Roy Agee, Dr. Conley Byrd, Jimmy Fisher, Ted Harden and Patricia Royal Johnson voted yes.
After the meeting, Robinson had this to say.
Citing legislation currently being discussed at the state capital, Carroll tried to encourage some of the JP’s who had supported Robinson’s budget to switch sides, and support the budget that had been previously tabled. Carroll said he did not want Jefferson County to be the first county in the state who had to have the state create a budget for them.
State Representative Glenn Barnes, who is working with other Jefferson County legislators on that proposal attended the meeting but did not get involved.
County employees have missed three paychecks and some county employees are staying home while others are still on the job. One of those is Eric Walden from Juvenile Court who talked to Deltaplex News who talked about how the situation is affecting employees and the things the court can’t do right now.
Several judges told Deltapex News that with the Circuit Clerk’s Office shut down, they are not able to call juries or process cases.
