Highland Supervisors Kick Off New Year With Budget Deliberations

Monterey, VA – Two new Supervisors, Lee Blagg and Kevin Wagner, joined returning Supervisor David Blanchard for the first Board meeting of the new year on Tuesday evening. David Blanchard was elected chairman and Lee Blagg Vice-Chairman. The Board adopted their Rules of Procedure and set the schedule of meeting dates for the year. The Board will meet the first Tuesday of each month and will hold a work session, if needed, on the third Wednesday of each Month. Chairman David Blanchard had comments for the new Board members.

“I’d just like to welcome the new board, welcome back Mr. Blagg, welcome Mr. Wagner,” says Blanchard. “I think we’ll have a good four years and we’ll get a lot accomplished.”

County Administrator Roberta Lambert asked the Board to start thinking about the budget process.

“The constitutional officers, the elected officials are required by the state compensation board to submit a budget to them by February 1st,” she says, “and at the same time they submit a budget to the county and I will be sending letters this week to all the other departments, agencies and organizations that receive funding from the county asking them to also have a budget request in by February the 1st. It’s just mainly for y’all to start thinking about this. The school has to submit a budget to the county by April 1st, and you have to adopt a budget for them by May 1st.”

Supervisor Blanchard had a suggestion.

“I think it would probably be a good idea to meet with these departments as soon as possible to get the conversations started,” says Blanchard. “I don’t think we’ve really done that in the past couple of years where we’ve sat down with them.”

Supervisor Kevin Wagner then made a request.

“I’d kind of like for you to spell out to them too if they’re going to come to a meeting, to come with where they’re at, where they see themselves say [in] five years; what their needs are and what their vision is for their organization – I’m thinking namely for the [Recreation] Commission, those types of groups so we’re both on the same page.”

In other business, County Administrator Lambert suggested that the Board hold a public meeting to consider the matter of changing the site of the McDowell solid waste facility.

“The McDowell solid waste collection site, we have been talking about the possibility of setting a date for a public meeting in McDowell to give the citizens there and opportunity to hear what proposals the board has and to offer comments,” says Lambert. “We have some sites that have been suggested; I think we need to sit down and talk about each one of those sites and what the potentials for each of those sites are. And get together what all sites we are looking at.”

The Board scheduled a public meeting at the Stonewall Ruritan Club for Wednesday, January 18, at 7:30 PM to discuss the solid waste facility. The next regular meeting of the Highland County Board of Supervisors will be Tuesday, February 7 at 7:30 PM in the Modular Conference Center in Monterey.