Commissioners want Kaye to make cuts

In response to the plan by the Grady County Board of Education to cut out the $100,000 it allocates for Roddenbery Memorial Library, Library Director Alan Kaye has issued a request for aid from the Grady County Commission.
Kaye wrote to county commissioners seeking their approval to include the maintenance of the library’s grounds in the county’s annual contract for the grounds maintenance of the courthouse and other county facilities.
According to the library director, this would save the library $4,800 per year and he is seeking the county’s blessings to cover that cost for the next two years.
In his letter Kaye notes that he has not completed his budget proposal, but he is already polled city officials about the possibility of the city of Cairo absorbing the cost of utilities of the library for the next two years. The Cairo city council has not formally addressed that request.
County Administrator Rusty Moye on Tuesday night recommended the commissioners table any action on the library director’s request until they begin their own budget hearings.
“I suggest you convey to him that, with all due respect, he come forward with a bare bones budget that shows us what can he do to help us out. I haven’t seen a lot he has proposed to do to cut costs. All I see is that he wants the money, but if we don’t have it we can’t give it to him,” Commissioner Bobby Burns said.
Burns added, “He needs to make a proposal what he can get by with the least. Public employees not only here but in the state and the nation are being furloughed and they remain open six days a week. Everyone has to sacrifice. I know the library is used, but we can’t give everything to everybody we we don’t have the money.”
Chairman Al Ball recommended that in addition to Commissioner Burns’ comments Moye should advise the library director of the date he should present a proposal to the board.
“The library is very important and deserves to be funded but he must show what he can do to cut and then we will be in a position to make a decision how much we can help based on his initiatives,” Chairman Ball said.
Vice Chairman Charles Renaud also noted, “he needs to understand we are looking for serious cuts like have been done everywhere else.”
County Administrator Moye agreed and commented that the county is currently operating with six less employees. “We are six short right now and are trying to offer the same service as when we had the other six. I know we not succeeding greatly, but we are having to make do,” Moye said.
Moye is to communicate the consensus of the board and set  date for Kaye to appear before the board.