GALLIPOLIS — Gallia County Commissioners continued 2010 budget discussions during their regular Thursday meeting.

Commissioners met with:

• Probate-Juvenile Judge Thomas Moulton, Jr., and Probate-Juvenile Director Greg Shrader. Commissioners noted an approximate $40,000 increase from last year’s budget.

Shrader explained that the 2009 budget had been decreased by $25,000, which they were instructed to supplement from Title IV-D out of Child Support Reimbursement funding, however, that money is really supposed to go toward child support purposes, so the $25,000 was built back into the 2010 budget. In addition, Moulton said their chief probation officer is currently being paid with grant monies, but should be paid with county funding.

• Children’s Services Board member Russ Moore reported that the agency is doing much better than it had been over the summer and now carries a $42,742 cash balance.

“We have stability and we feel comfortable that things are proceeding as they should,” Moore said.

He added that their budget contains no increases from 2009 and is essentially “cut to the bare bones,” though they likely could not handle any more cuts.

Moore also said that as of October, 31 kids were in placement.

• Recorder Roger Walker requested an additional $8,000 to purchase a new copier. He said they currently have two copiers, the newest one being approximately seven years old and the older one being “on its way out,” though still functioning.

Commissioners noted that he had trimmed down some other funding areas and the only increases in Walker’s proposed budget were for PERS and hospitalization. He also requested that the walls be fixed in the office and commissioners agreed that they did need to be addressed.

• Gallia County Common Pleas Court Judge D. Dean Evans said it is difficult to nail down an exact budget because of Title IV-D money his office receives. He requested more than $443,000, though he explained that he is aware the county will not appropriate that much due to the Title IV-D funding.

Evans informed the commission that he would also be making a supplemental appropriations request for 2009 due to an employee retiring and the recent capital murder case.

He said jury fees alone cost $11,520, the judge expense was around $1,200, $2,500 for the special deputy commissioner, $557 for special detail, and $3,800 on the special stenographer required in capital cases. He said common pleas court would likely need to supplemented $5,149, maybe a couple of hundred more, which is not near as bad as he initially anticipated.

• Clerk of Courts Noreen Saunders requested increases for postage as her office performs all mailing required by the court and salary lines because not only has her office’s caseload increased, but foreclosure cases are up and they take an “immense” amount of her employees’ time.

Commissioners said they don’t know where they’ll land on raises this year, noting that the county is some $50,000 behind on 2009 sales tax. Saunders said if she could not give raises then she would likely need to hire another employee for her office to function properly due to the heavy workload. She also said she anticipates transferring more than $10,000 over from Titles in 2010.

Commissioners said that in the next 20 to 30 days they will have a much truer picture of where the county is at financially.