By Blake Deshazo
The Selma Times-Journal
With a new fiscal year comes a new budget, and Dallas County Commission Chairman and Probate Judge Kim Ballard said this year’s budget is one of the best he has ever seen during his tenure.

“I am totally pleased with this budget. It’s the best budget I’ve seen in my 10 years as probate judge,” Ballard said. “The health of the county is unbelievable.”

The county has a budget of $22.8 million for the 2017 fiscal year, which is just under last year’s budget of $23.5 million. Ballard said the decrease was due to Alabama Transportation Rehabilitation and Improvement Program projects.

The general fund budget is $11 million, which includes general government, public safety, sanitation, health and education among other departments.

The budget for the engineering department, which is responsible for more than 1,000 miles of road, is $8 million and the other funds account for $3.8 million.

“It is a healthier budget every year,” Ballard said. “We’ve got a better fund balance, and everything is balanced. I don’t know what else you could ask for in a budget.”

This year’s budget allowed the county to give all its employees a 4 percent raise, which is estimated at nearly $300,000.

“I think our employees are very pleased with that. I’ve had hundreds of calls and compliments,” Ballard said. “It makes me feel real proud. When you take someone who is trying to live on $9 an hour, it means a lot to them. It makes you feel good. You wish you could do more.”

The county is also paying the increase in Blue Cross Blue Shield for employees, which is $63,000.

The county was also able to purchase five new cars for the sheriff’s department and new dump trucks for the road department.

“We’ve got basically all new equipment in the road department and new cars in the sheriff’s department,“ Ballard said. “We try to keep the dump trucks for only two years. That way they stay under warranty and you don’t ever have to worry about fixing them.”

Ballard said one thing that makes balancing the budget is that department heads have bought into the process.

“Used to in my early years as probate judge, if a department had $200,000 in the budget in September, they were going to spend it before October. It was a mentality, and we finally broke through that mentality,” Ballard said.

The county is also nearly debt free, according to Ballard, with the exception of two small bonds.

“We’re basically debt free, and we’re not delinquent on anybody,” Ballard said. “We live by the budget. It’s pretty set in concrete.”