Halfway Through 2017, County Finances Still Treading Water

Halfway through the 2017 budget year, Crawford County's finances are looking a lot like 2016, 2015 and the years before that.

The county remains stuck in a holding pattern, barely holding its head above water -- "paycheck to paycheck" as County Clerk John Martin described it.

Wednesday will be one year since voters trounced a half-cent sales tax increase put forth by the commissioners. That same election, county voters went against former commissioners Paul Watson and Kenny Killeen, electing their eventual successors -- Rob Cummings and Jared Boast -- in the Republican primary.

Three months later, the commission tried a quarter-cent sales tax increase. It failed just as badly as the August attempt. With Crawford County buried under a mountain of debt, mostly a product of the self-funded insurance passed in 2012, voters sent a message to county officials that it would have to make due with what it already had coming in.

Read more on this story in the Aug. 2 issue of the Independent News.