Ошибка в расчетах привела к росту расходов Рэндольфского округа на содержание несовершеннолетних на 192%

‘Calculation error’ leads to 192 percent increase in county’s fee for youth detention services PROTECTED CONTENT If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above. Username and Password Help Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link. When it came to two specific financial developments that were revealed at Monday’s meeting of the Randolph County Commission, there was good news and bad news. And like anyone in this position would, we’ll start with the bad news first. The Randolph County Commission at Monday’s meeting reluctantly approved a 192 percent increase in the county’s costs for youth detention services, a change necessitated by a “calculation error” discovered by the East Alabama Regional Detention Center in Lee County. Randolph County does not have its own youth detention facilities for incarcerating underage offenders. So the county makes quarterly payments to Lee County to secure a total of three beds year-round in their facility. One of those three beds is paid for with state funds. The other two are funded through county funds. The county had been paying just under $44,000 annually for those two beds, but earlier this month Lee County contacted Randolph County Administrator Travis Heard to let him know that that amount was an error and was far too low. “Apparently the amount that we have been paying has been wrong for several years,” Heard told the commission Monday. The increase was substantial, going from just under $44,000 per year to $127,750 per year. The regional detention center provides services for seven counties, including Randolph, Clay, Chambers, Lee, Russell, Tallapoosa and Macon Counties. Heard said that he was told that Randolph County’s increased rate puts the county on par with what the other six counties are paying. But now for the good news. Revenue for the county from the Simplified Sellers Use Tax, or SSUT, continues to go up. The SSUT is essentially a statewide sales tax on online purchases made by Alabama residents. The revenue from that tax is distributed to counties and municipalities based on population. The county commission on Monday made a budget amendment to adjust for an estimated additional $100,000 that the county will receive beyond what was originally budgeted for the 2025-26 fiscal year, which ends September 30. As part of that budget amendment the county also agreed to pay the corresponding 10 percent of that increase to the county’s 911 board, since the 911 board always receives 10 percent of those funds. Commissioner Larry Roberts used the opportunity to remind the 911 board that regular increases in the SSUT revenue make it unnecessary for the 911 board to charge the $12,000 dispatch fee to the county’s volunteer fire departments. The county reimburses the VFDs for that fee. “This just points out something that I kept telling 911 and all the board members when they kept wanting to charge the fire departments a dispatch fee,” Roberts said. “I kept reminding them that every year [revenue from] this simplified use tax is going to increase because they’re getting a percentage. I didn’t think it was right for the fire department, being volunteer, to have to pay that dispatch fee. There’s a reason we did that. I just want everybody to understand.” Both the youth detention fees and the SSUT revenue are part of the county’s general fund, so the increase in SSUT revenue will more than offset the increased youth detention expense. The commission also discussed the possibility of approaching the county’s municipalities to help take on some of the youth detention expense.