County Clerk Seeks Help From County in Funding Another Employee In His Office

June 1, 2023
By: Dwayne Page

DeKalb County Clerk James L. (Jimmy) Poss wants to add another full-time employee in his office.

During Tuesday night’s meeting, Poss addressed the county budget committee asking that the county fund part of the position. Restricted earmarked fees for his office generated from noting of liens and titling transactions would be used to fund the rest of the salary.

The county clerk’s office currently has four full time employees and one of them doubles as a deputy clerk and bookkeeper. Poss said his goal is to have this employee become a full-time bookkeeper and to hire a new deputy clerk. The starting pay for a first-year county employee is currently $32,134 plus benefits but is scheduled to increase to $33,819 plus benefits with the 2023-24 fiscal year.

According to Poss, an amended law which passed last year by the Tennessee General Assembly provided the means for his office to collect sufficient fees through a restricted earmarked account to help pay for this position. Poss said the state last year upped fees for title transactions by $3.00 per title to provide more funds to clerks for doing work the state had previously done. The extra fees generated go into a restricted earmarked account for clerks to use for specific purposes including adding a clerical employee to handle the extra workload.

“Effective last July 1, 2022, the state legislature amended one of our (county clerk office) restricted fees after the state vehicles services department stopped completing the noting of liens at the state level and pushed them all back to county clerk’s offices across the state,” said County Clerk Poss. “Even before the change in the law, the state started reimbursing us and since then we have waited to see what kind of money this would generate. We are still two months away from having a full year in but from what we have received already we should finish out this fiscal year at between $18,000 and $20,000 in that revenue account,” said Poss.

“I need a new person to train on the front line and keep the lady who has been doing my book work for eight years. She knows the books well and has done a great job. Having her as a full-time bookkeeper is what I would like to do. I don’t know of any county our size that does not have a full-time bookkeeper. Nowadays there are so many vital procedures and it’s getting harder to function without a full-time bookkeeper whose duties include scanning multiple records, printing titles, completing mail in transactions, creating County Commission minutes, performing end of month reconciliations, printing and reviewing various reports, mailing annual renewal notices, reviewing, editing, and processing transactions prior to printing, among others,” said County Clerk Poss.

The budget committee has not yet acted on County Clerk Poss’ request.

May 31, 2023
By: Dwayne Page

The DeKalb County Ambulance Service recently received a $2,000 donation from Middle Tennessee Natural Gas Utility District through “Project Hometown Help.”

Assistant DeKalb EMS Director Trent Phipps accepted the donation on behalf of the ambulance service from Mike Corley, General Counsel for Middle Tennessee Natural Gas.

DeKalb EMS Director Hoyte Hale said the ambulance service is grateful to MTNG for this donation.

Funds from the Hometown Help voluntary program come from an automatic rounding up of participating customers’ bills to the next highest whole dollar amount. This funding is used to advance education, assist economic development, promote local charities, and provide relief to the disabled and elderly for payment of natural gas bills.

May 31, 2023
By: Dwayne Page

The DeKalb Prevention Coalition, in partnership with the Tennessee Tech Addiction Prevention & Support Coalition will be hosting a Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Course on Wednesday, June 14 from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. at the DeKalb County Community Center.

The training will be provided at no cost to the participants thanks to a grant from the Tennessee Center for Rural Innovation’s Rural Reimagined Grand Challenge Faculty Grant Program at Tennessee Tech University.

Just as CPR helps you assist an individual having a heart attack, Mental Health First Aid helps you assist someone experiencing a mental health or substance use-related crisis. In the Mental Health First Aid course, you learn risk factors and warning signs for mental health and addiction concerns, strategies for how to help someone in both crisis and non-crisis situations, and where to turn for help.

Mental Health First Aid, an evidence-based training designed by the National Council Mental Wellbeing, is a course that teaches you how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders. The training gives you the skills you need to reach out and provide initial help and support to someone who may be developing a mental health or substance use problem or experiencing a crisis.

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