Budget Is Standing Committee Priority

For County Commissioner John Druzbick, it's all about the budget.

Although commissioners put the fiscal year 2009 budget to bed in October, work is about to start in earnest on next year's finances.

Druzbick said Thursday that should be a top priority for one of the new standing committees the board has agreed to form.

"The budget needs to be the first one because we're getting into our budget year right now," Druzbick said.

Druzbick said the board will have to discuss how many members each committee should have. However, he doesn't want them to have too many members because they can become unwieldy and unproductive.

"Right now, it's in (County Administrator David Hamilton's) lap and, in January, he will come up with a plan to put these committees together and get them running as soon as possible," he said.

At a brainstorming workshop last week, county commissioners agreed with County Commissioner David Russell's idea to form standing committees that would address the top five or so issues facing Hernando County.

The committee idea was a page taken out of Russell's tenure as a state legislator.

Commissioners agreed the priorities are the budget, transportation, government reorganization, fire services and economic development.

Russell said Thursday the only way this will work is if the committees stay narrowly focused, are small enough to allow open debate and allow county commissioners to introduce alternate ideas.

Russell would like to see two committees, composed of five members: Two county commissioners and three people from the public who are appointed by the board.

These volunteers could be retired business executives or anyone who has expertise in the particular subject addressed by that committee.

Russell said one committee should focus on the budget and capital projects while the second would tackle government operations, reorganization and streamlining.

The committee members would have access to staff and meet regularly.

Russell said this would be different from the 25-member citizens' advisory committee on capital improvements that commissioners appointed in 2006.

"That was an example of where a committee went wrong," Russell said. "It was far too diverse, not as focused as it should be and had too many personalities.

"The key is to keep a narrow focus on the objective and these committees, due to their smaller size, will do that."