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Cuts made to county budget, but firefighter position added

Posted: Aug 16, 2012 4:15 PM by Jamie Leary
Updated: Aug 16, 2012 4:25 PM

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Butte-Silver Bow County budget discussions resulted in more cuts than anticipated.

On Wednesday night, the council of commissioners adopted the chief executive's $124 million budget with a 3.2 percent pay raise for county employees.

Union contracts that specified longevity raises received those as well.

Commissioner Sheryl Ralph says they cut way more than was put in, but several proposed positions were added.

According to Jeff Amerman, Director of the Finance and Budget Department, about 5 positions were added and 7 positions were cut.

Amerman says his department will have the revised budget ready by next week and while he doesn't know the exact figure he says the overall budget will be quite a bite less than it was in 2011.

A new firefighter is one of those. Chief Executive Paul Babb broke a tie last night to add the job.

"We had a good showing of support from our firefighters last night at the meeting and it's really important to have the position restored so that we have an adequate number of fire fighters to staff both fire stations," Butte-Silver Bow Fire Chief Jeff Miller said.

The added firefighter position will receive a salary of just over $49,000 per year including benefits.

The budget is still up for more revisions and will be open for discussion again during next Wednesday's council meeting.

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