Mojave County is a big place. With over 14,000 square miles of landform, the county has a surface area larger than Connecticut, Delaware and New Jersey combined. For county motor pools, this means using a lot of gasoline.
According to the Mojave County Department of Public Works, unleaded gasoline spending this year has more than tripled last year’s county budget. In the 2023 county budget, he was allocated $80,000 for fuel costs for the county’s motor pools, but officials now say that continued price increases have pushed those costs up to about $245,000. said.
The Mojave County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to allow the use of contingency funds to meet rising gas prices and other unexpected costs by the department this year under this year’s budget. .
The county’s vehicles have also taken a hit as repair parts and raw materials have become more difficult to obtain over the past year, said Public Works Director Steven Latsky. It’s giving way to vehicle repair costs, which may require an additional $135,000 in contingency funding to cover this.
Public Works Director Steven Latsky also requested a transfer of $90,000 in contingency funds from the Mojave County Board of Supervisors to reduce some of the mundane or foreseeable costs.
According to court records, these costs included $10,000 to remove a cypress tree in Kingman’s Mojave Superior Court, $3,290 to inspect a boiler system, and $3,498 to inspect a cooling system for a county facility. It contains.
With these costs, public works officials project a budget deficit of $96,798 by the end of the year, according to county records.
The Mojave County Board of Supervisors plans to vote on whether to approve the department’s requested budget reassignment at its board’s next meeting in Kingman on Tuesday.
