As the new year approaches in a few weeks, the Carroll County Quorum Court’s Budget Committee has been busy working on the county’s 2024 spending plan.

District 1 Justice of the Peace Jack Deaton, who chairs the committee, said Monday that the projected budget for next year will come in somewhere between $15 to $16 million. The committee’s challenge is determining how that money is best spent while understanding that a large portion of it is already earmarked for specific purposes.

“Two thirds of that is earmarked already,” Deaton said, alluding to tax revenue that is allocated to local schools and specific county departments.

Add in some uncertainty over revenue for 2024 and the economy in general, and Deaton said the committee is taking a cautious approach.

“Our initial projection is, we’re going to be a little shorter on money this year than we have been,” Deaton said. “And so we’re kind of tiptoeing through this thing. Every year, we try to go through operations first and try to take care of all (the various county departments’) stuff they have to have, as much as the stuff we can get that they want. And then after that’s over with, we kind of back up and look at it and that’s when we start working on salaries. But it’s going pretty good. Of course, everything in the world went up this year. So it’s kind of tough. These department heads are really struggling, trying to stay as low as they possibly can and still be able to operate.” Deaton said the committee would like to be able to budget raises for county employees, another area where caution is necessary.

“We have to make sure we can sustain that,” he said. “We don’t want to give too big a raise and then get ourselves in trouble down the road. That’s always an issue.”

The committee is in the process of meeting with department heads to look over their proposed 2024 budgets. The first of those meetings were held Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 9-10. Another meeting was held Monday, Oct. 16, to review proposed budgets for the circuit clerk’s and sheriff’s office. The final two committee meetings are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 2324.

The quorum court’s final two regular meetings of the year are scheduled for Nov. 21 and Dec. 16.