- November 14, 2024
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Flagler County may almost triple the amount of money it spends on county commissioners' travel. This fiscal year, the county budgeted $15,850. This coming fiscal year, the amount considered is $45,000, or $9,000 per commissioner in addition to commissioners' state-determined salaries of about $51,000 per year.
Commissioner Barbara Revels objected at a budget workshop May 19, saying she could see bumping the budget up to $30,000 but not up by $30,000. "I’m suggesting that adding $30,000 is obscene for what we’re already compensated for our job," she said.
"I’m suggesting that adding $30,000 is obscene."
— BARBARA REVELS, County Commissioner
Commissioners Nate McLaughlin and Frank Meeker disagreed.
"There's a direct benefit to the citizens of Flagler County," McLaughlin said of county commissioners' travel. "That’s where we go and build these relationships, and get these grants and get these dollars."
Meeker said he is the one who does the most commission-related traveling, not just for conferences but also for meetings of various committees. "Some commissioners don’t necessarily have to travel outside of the county," Meeker said. "Some do."
County Administrator Craig Coffey said commissioners have been exceeding their budgets in recent years, averaging $6,500 in travel per commissioner, or $32,500 total.
"There's a cost to being involved in peddling influence. ... We just decide: Are we going to make phone calls, or are we going to make visits?"
— NATE McLAUGHLIN, County Commissioner
Commissioner George Hann suggested placing a number lower than $45,000 in the budget and then letting commissioners who wanted to go beyond that amount make requests at a board meeting. But that wouldn't work, Revels said, because the commission still has to determine the county's budget for the upcoming year.
McLaughlin said commissioners wouldn't necessarily use all of what was budgeted.
But, he said, "There's a cost to being involved in peddling influence. ... I don’t know of anything frivolous that’s happened in the six years I’ve been sitting here, from any commissioner. We just decide: Are we going to make phone calls, or are we going to make visits?"
"My position is we’re going make visits," Meeker replied.
Revels said she'd been trying to offer a compromise. "But it doesn’t appear that you’re willing to compromise," she said. "I just think we have a tight budget here — we’re talking about raising millage, we’re talking about what our employees are going to get, how we’re going to pay for healthcare — and we’re talking about travel."
"Yeah, because the travel that we do offsets a lot of the projects that we do," McLaughlin said.
Coffey suggested placing a total of $35,000 in the budget, or $7,000 per commissioner that could be shifted from one commissioner to the next, if necessary. Commissioners didn't settle the issue during the workshop.
