NEWPORT-Cocke County officials aren't waiting to see the impact of the Interstate 40 rockslide in North Carolina before taking corrective action.

Members of the Finance Committee of the Cocke County Legislative Body approved several measures Monday in planning for the worst.

The measures include having each department spend only 1/12 of its budget per month, strictly adhere to purchasing policies and procedures, keeping current job vacancies unfilled until January, split contribution payments to various non-profit agencies in half (with the first payment coming on request and the second part of the contribution being paid in March of 2010) and suspending all district allocations.

"What I wanted to bring home is we anticipate an impact from the rockslide," said County Finance Director Anne Williams. "But, we don't know what it will be. We know it has hurt our businesses, with layoffs and restricted hours. It's going to be a delayed impact and we have to be prepared."

In particular, Williams said the rockslide will impact the local options sales tax, hotel/motel tax, wholesale beer tax and mixed drink tax funding, which is budgeted at $897,500. Although collections so far this year have been adequate, Williams said a 3 percent drop would virtually erase the county's $27,862 unappropriated fund balance.

Williams said she, the county executive and the Finance Committee, by law, have an obligation to address situations where the budget may be in danger.

Williams presented a copy of the laws which states, "If at any time during the fiscal year it shall become apparent that the revenues of any of the county's funds, together with its unencumbered cash balance at the beginning of such years, will not be sufficient to equal the amount of the original appropriations, it shall be the duty of the directors of accounts and budgets and the county executive to impound the appropriations from such fund in such amount as shall appear necessary, subject to the written approval of the budget committee."

"This meeting is for us to prepare ourselves to deal with it in the spring when we have a better idea of the impact."

Williams said the proposed changes weren't because the Finance Committee didn't budget right. "We just don't have a fund balance," she said.

She also pointed out that funding for the school system and highway department budgets will be less impacted than that of the General Fund.

"The school system gets 75 percent of its funding from the state and they have a large enough fund balance to absorb the impact," she said.

She added that gasoline tax and other funding for the Highway Department is based on revenue sharing, not local collections.

"The General Fund will have the biggest burden to bear," she said.

Deputy Trustee Juanita Frazier told the committee that reports on sales tax figures run a month behind.

"We probably won't be able to tell anything until December," said Frazier.

Frazier inquired if Williams knew how the rockslide in 1997 impacted the county. Williams said that the current computer system only has information back to 2001 and the only way she could obtain that information would be looking at an audit from that year.

Williams then recommended the proposed changes to limit spending until the impact of the slide can be determined.

"If the impact is worse, we may have to do more desperate things," she said.

"This is an impressive analysis," Henry "Skip" Gregory told Williams. Gregory then moved to adopt the changes and was seconded by Love Henderson. The measure passed unanimously.

In other business Tuesday, Clay Blazer was re-elected chairman of the Finance Committee and Phil Killion was chosen as vice chairman.

The Committee also referred discussion on improvements to Cosby Convenience Center back to the Landfill Committee.