Callaway County officials finalized end-of-year revisions to the county's 2020 budget Tuesday.
The changes updated the official budget documents to reflect the money actually spent and received throughout the year - a routine process that occurs each year. But this year's amendments were more dramatic than usual.
"Sometimes things happen during the year that we didn't plan for - when we planned this budget, we didn't have any idea about the $5.2 million in CARES Act money we'd receive," county Auditor Karen Rentschler said.
All told, the county added $6,661,427 in revenue and $7,818,141 in expenditures, bringing the total 2020 budget to $31,767,456 in revenue and $34,476,391 in expenditures. That's more than twice the size of the 2017 budget and several million dollars larger than 2021's expected budget as well.
The COVID-19 pandemic drove most of the changes approved Tuesday.
Callaway County received a total of $5,249,247 in CARES Act funding, which accumulated $6,000 in interest during the year. All $5,255,247 will be spent by the end of today, said Callaway County Presiding Commissioner Gary Jungermann.
The recently passed and signed H.R. 133 extended the deadline to spend federal CARES Act funds until Dec. 31, 2021, but the commission spent much of the year believing any money left unspent when 2021 began would have to be returned. They paced disbursements based on the earlier deadline.
Most of the county's CARES funds were distributed to municipalities, schools, nonprofits and small businesses, but the county took $350,000 into its general revenue fund.
"We paid some COVID-19 expenses," Rentschler said. "We bought a lot of (personal protective equipment) supplies, that type of thing."
CARES Act money also paid for the training and wages of extra contact tracers in the Callaway County Health Department.
A separate CARES Act grant of $56,180 went to the county clerk's office to pay for safeguards during this year's election.
Another major change occurred due to progress on the county's planned jail expansion and new justice center. The project is moving faster than expected, and the Proposition 1 and 2 taxes are keeping up, Jungermann said.
"We've paid 80 percent of the architect's fees already - the projects are a lot further along than I expected they would be," he said. "Not that we overspent in any way."
The county put $1 million toward "professional services" on the project.
Other assorted tweaks included $167,154 toward a Kenworth truck for the Road and Bridge Department (funded in part through a Volkswagen Trust grant) and $2,000 to cover law enforcement training that ended up being slightly spendier than anticipated.
"Everything here's just in perfect shape," Western District Commissioner Roger Fischer said. "We were so lucky to get that COVID relief money."