WEST OLIVE, Mich. — Ottawa County plans to funnel the shuttered Department of Equity and Inclusion budget into its contingency balance.
In January, after the new board took office, commissioners voted to close the DEI department.
According to county documents, the board is requesting to move $161,000 from the DEI budget to the contingency fund.
This comes days after the board of commissioners approved using $110,000 from the contingency fund to finance the Kallman Legal Group's added expenses.
Also, in this week's finance report, the Kallman Legal Group's bill started closing in on $40,000 in just the last three weeks— the largest invoice from corporate counsel to date.
Earlier this month, Finance Director Karen Karasinski told the finance committee they budgeted $210,000 for the no-bid contract.
"So in January, there was a purchase order issued, and the average that we're seeing is approximately $35,000 a month," Karasinski said.
The director told the committee that there was between $750,000 and $800,000 in the contingency fund at the beginning of the year; however, Karasinski explained that, after expenses for Kallman Legal Group tapped into those funds, there would be about $36,000 left over.
FOX 17 did some investigating on what else was paid from the contingency fund.
In March, commissioners approved the use of $112,000 to fund a contract increase with Environmental Services. Then in April, agreed to use $276,000 to pay the severance package for its last county administrator, which included unemployment and general liability.
Additionally, back in January, the new board members moved to fire former County Administrator John Shay and replaced him with John Gibbs.
