CENTRE — The Cherokee County Commission plans to meet today to approve a $19.1 million annual budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, County Administrator Tim Burgess told The Post last week.

Burgess said the new budget, when finalized and approved by the commissioners, will be slightly higher than last year's $18.9 million.

“In my preliminary budget … it's going to go up about $150,000,” Burgess said Friday. That's an increase of a little over three-quarters of a percent.”

Burgess said despite tough financial times across the United States, the county's income hasn't dropped significantly.

“Revenues are roughly flat and there are some items that we have budgeted in the past that we have decreased,” he said.

Also, lower costs for some items over a year ago have opened up monies for other areas of the budget.

“We had such a large fuel cost in our sheriff's department and our highway department a year ago that we were able to reduce the fuel budget,” Burgess said. That is going to enable us to increase the budget just a little bit.”

Burgess said the most expensive item on the budget is always salaries and benefits for employees.

“Of course to provide services you have to have people to do them,” he said.

A couple of items of interest in the proposed budget, Burgess said, include a computerized system for alerting county residents of approaching bad weather. The county plans to subscribe to the system for an annual cost of $10,000.

“In the event of a storm, if you register, the Code Red system will call you on your phone -- home or cell,” he said. “If you have two or three numbers it will call you on all of them.”

Burgess said the system is set up to be accessed exclusively over the Internet.

“For those people who do not have access to Web they can call the E-911 office at 927-3911 and they will register for you,” Burgess said. “Once the commissioners approve that, they will sign a contract and we should have that service almost immediately. We will run an announcement in the papers and let the citizens know that the service is available.”

The County Commission also plans to give $15,000 to the Parks and Recreation Board, which has been in existence since 1985 but has done little to upgrade facilities through the years because of a lack of funds.

“We also have $35,000 in capital improvement funds that we will make available to them,” Burgess said. “It is a whole lot more that has been done in the past. I think the Commission and Chairman Melvyn Salter all realize that there is the need to do something” to promote the county's natural resources.

“It's a start and it will help get them started,” Burgess added. “And the commissioners will be open to providing more if they need it.”

Burgess said the budget will become public as soon as it is approved.