The 2013-2014 fiscal-year budget for Beaufort County includes some good news for Chocowinity-area residents.

The budget, approved Monday by the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners and which takes effect July 1, includes $150,000 to cover planning and construction of a solid-waste convenience site in Chocowinity Township.

Users of the existing convenience center off Gray Road complain it’s inadequate to meet demands placed on it. County officials contend the new convenience center will solve that issue.

The 2013-2014 budget, approved by a 4-3 vote, closely reflects the recommended budget County Manager Randell Woodruff presented to the board in early May, with a net reduction to it of $276,048.

Under the approved budget, the Beaufort County Department of Social Services’ overall budget was reduced by $180,000.

The adopted 2013-2014 budget, proffered by Commissioner Al Klemm, reduces the number of replacement vehicles for the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office from the recommended five vehicles to three, a reduction in expenditures of $54,000. The overtime budget for the sheriff’s office was reduced by $40,000 in the approved budget.

The Beaufort County Detention Center’s inmate-safekeeping budget (which mostly pays for inmates’ medical needs) was reduced by $100,000 in the new budget.

The new spending plan reduces the county’s use of its fund balance (rainy-day fund) by $215,000. Woodruff’s recommended budget called for taking $627,000 from the fund balance to help balance the upcoming budget.

The adopted budget restores $160,000 to Beaufort County Schools’ $12 million local current expense fund (day-to-day operations). In a nonbinding straw poll during a budget work session at the end of May, the board voted to reduce that fund by $160,000. The budget offered by Klemm called for all results of straw polls to be voided, which happened when the board approved the new budget.

For additional coverage of the board’s meeting, see future editions of the Washington Daily News.