Mercer County commissioners finalize budget amid rising jail costs

PRINCETON, W.Va. (WVVA) - The Mercer County commissioners have finalized a budget for the new fiscal year as they work with the cost of the rising jail bill.

The budget may be finished, but concern around the cost of the ever-rising jail bill still lingers over the commissioners’ heads. Instead of focusing on the future, the commissioners are looking at what they can do now to best set the county up for financial success.

To Commissioner Brian Blankenship, this consists of temporarily pausing funding requests.

“You wanna over budget on your expenses and you under budget your revenues. And I just kind of felt that with my prior budgeting experience with the city of Princeton over many years, I felt that we just needed to take a pause, circle the wagons, let’s tighten our belt, and let’s make sure we’re doing what we need to do just in case the worst case scenario shows up here in June when we’re finishing up our fiscal year,” Blankenship said.

Blankenship said next week the commissioners will have a meeting to lay the levy. He said once the new fiscal year budget begins in July, changes can still be made throughout the year.

“If revenues come in a little bit better than expected, you know, we can do budget revisions and put that on the spending side. So we’ll have to see. Revenues might not come in as expected or expenses might go to the moon, so to speak,” Blankenship said.

As of right now, there is no additional revenue source to combat the increased costs. Blankenship said they will always do what is in the best interests of Mercer County residents.

Blankenship said the teamwork between departments brings hope that the number of individuals admitted and those already in the regional jail will decline.