ALBANY — In advance of next week’s presentation of a completed draft of the county’s fiscal year ’09 budget to the entire Dougherty County Commission, the board’s Finance Committee met Thursday morning to consider the budget proposal requests of Dougherty Sheriff Jamil Saba and Economic Development Commission Chair Bobby McKinney.

Saba, who is retiring at the end of the year, had asked the commission for $2,973,000 for his successor, who will be selected by voters in the July 15 general primary. That amount is a $250,000-plus increase above what the sheriff’s department was allocated in the FY ’08 budget.

County staff recommended that the department, which includes 45 full-time employees and 13 part-time bailiffs, get an additional $191,412.

“There are only a couple of items I’d like to focus on,” Saba told the committee. “We asked for funding to replace five of our vehicles (at $125,000), but you’ve included enough to replace three. I’d just like to say that 11 of our 30 vehicles have over 100,000 miles on them, and one of them is more than 10 years old.

“I also want to increase funding for part-time bailiffs so that we don’t have to take our deputies off the road for court duty. I’ll remind you that for every paper and warrant we serve, the county gets a percentage of the fine collected. I’d ask you to look closely at these matters.”

McKinney, who is serving as interim chair of the EDC while the search for a permanent replacement takes place, said staff was looking to get the most from the funding ($250,000) provided by the county.

“We’re putting a strategic plan in place that calls for work in other arenas of leadership that may actually conflict with city and county plans,” he said. “I ask you to take a close look at that plan.”

Committeee member Chuck Lingle asked McKinney about EDC plans to work with existing businesses on employee retention.

“What has generally happened in the past is that we enlist volunteers to conduct interviews with businesses for our BREP (Business Retention and Expansion Program), but once the interviews are over the volunteers go back to their lives,” McKinney said. “If there are follow-up questions, the volunteers are no longer around.

“Now (EDC Vice President) Andrea Schruijer is taking over the responsibility of making those contacts. That’s going to work better, I think. We realize new businesses are absolutely critical in any community, but keeping the ones we have is equally as important.”

Finance Director Karen Goff gave a report on the budgets of all funds managed by the county, including workers compensation, special-purpose local-option sales tax, confiscated funds, DHR building funds, escrow funds, lease-commercial property funds, grants, law library funds and debt service funds.

“The state requires that we have a budget for all fund balances,” Goff said.

Goff outlined spending plans for SPLOST I-V projects that include some $24 million-plus earmarked for FY ’09 application. Among those projects is the much-anticipated completion of the Northwest Library.

County Administrator Richard Crowdis, noting that there were $2 million in SPLOST V funds available for improvements on the library, said its planned completion is scheduled for September of ’09.

The Finance Committee voted to deny a request for $500 in funding sought for an Albany Museum of Art summer program.

“There are a lot of things we’d love to fund, deserving programs, and we’re not talking about a lot of money,” committee member Art Searles said. “But if we open that gate ...”

Lingle made a motion that the committee reject the request based on county policy concerning 501-3C contributions, and the committee unanimously agreed.

The committee later voted to recommend approval of Coroner Emma Quimbley’s request to make her part-time assistant a full-time employee (at an additional cost of $18,232), voted to reject Flint RiverQuarium CEO Scott Loehr’s request for an additional $50,000 in funding (leaving the county’s contribution at $250,000) and approved District Attorney Ken Hodges’ request to hire a new legal secretary to help with the Juvenile Court backlog (at an additional $33,962).

The Finance Committee will meet Tuesday morning for a final time before presenting the finished budget to the entire commission at its Wednesday morning work session.