Financial problems were the main subject of Monday’s meeting of the Greene County Commission,

Although there are sufficient funds to meet the next payroll, October and  November are going to be tough months financially for Greene County,

Almost all departments are over budget for the year, especially the General Fund and the Sheriff’s Department, where personnel has to be reduced,

“Cutting staff is our only choice,” said Chairman William Underwood, Apparently, revenues have not come in as expected.

One of the biggest problems is the failure of customers to pay for garbage pick-up. Two possible solutions discussed were to raise the rate for the garbage pick-up and to initiate some type of enforcement to collect the past due bills.

County Engineer Arzo Abrams suggested that the county hire  a contractor to collect the past due bills.

Underwood suggested that both increasing the rate and hiring someone to collect the monthly bills was one way to bring more revenue into the county,

Another suggestion was to reduce the number of employees at the Greene County Jail to seven. This was approved by the commission.

Abrams was adamant that the county continue the road work on highly traveled roads. The county had grant money for this work and Abram said it would not be wise to lose the grant when the roads needed the work so badly.

It was unanimously approved to add both the Sheriff and the Eutaw City Police Chief to the E-911 Board.

The meeting was recessed until September 27 at 6 p.m.