Sequoyah County Commissioners tabled a final decision on the county’s 2009-10 budget Tuesday, until they found out the results of Tuesday’s special election on a half-cent sales tax for the county jail and sheriff’s office.

The proposition passed, and county commissioners will take that into consideration at a special meeting they will hold at 10 a.m. Friday to make a final decision on the budget. District 1 Commissioner Bruce Tabor said the county had two budgets written. The county’s total budget, which was $2,508,703, and a second budget, which was for $500,000 less. That $500,000 was set aside in the second budget for the sheriff’s office and jail operations.

Now the county’s budget maker, Vickie Wilson of Shawnee, is working on a third budget, which will include the half-cent sales tax revenue beginning in January. Wilson said Wednesday morning the county commissioners will have that budget for their special meeting on the budget Friday.

The county found itself in a financial crisis late last year and this year as revenue from housing prisoners for the State Department of Corrections dropped as state prisoners were returned to state prisons, and jail operations began to siphon money from the county’s budget of about $2 million. Sheriff Ron Lockhart estimated jail operations alone would cost the county about $1.4 million.

At a meeting last week the commissioners considered other alternatives, such as canceling health benefits for county employees and cutting county employees’ hours.

At that meeting John David Luton, first assistant district attorney, said that if the half-cent sales tax was approved by voters, the income could be rearranged in the county budget to maintain county government as well as the jail and sheriff’s office.

This was the third time a sales tax proposition for the county jail was put to the voters. The proposition failed on two earlier attempts. The jail already receives one-sixth of a cent sales tax, which was bringing in about $30,000 a month. That tax is permanent, along with the new sales tax, and the two together are expected to bring in about $1.44 million a year, but sales tax revenue throughout the county is dropping as the economic recession hurts county sales.

Collection of the sales tax is expected to begin next month and traditionally the Oklahoma Tax Commission returns the collections two months later, meaning the county could see the sales tax returned in January.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting Chris Keathley, Sequoyah County Emergency Management director, reported he was meeting with officials in Muskogee for an update on the H1N1, or swine, flu. Keathley said he had been told that about 150 doses of the H1N1 nasal mist immunizations had been given to Muskogee school children because the influenza strain has been detected in that school system. He added that Sequoyah County could expect about 300 doses of the nasal immunizations next month.

Lockhart told the commissioners had had obtained six No Dumping signs for each commission district to put up at illegal dumping sites, and that he was also putting up Neighborhood Watch signs in areas in the county.

Tabor reported the Cookson Hills Community Action was moving most of its business to Sallisaw after losing office space in Tahlequah. Cookson Hills Community Action and the KATS bus service share the same building, a remodeled older home now owned by the county. The remodeled house is south of the county jail on at 212 S. Elm St. Because the community action office will now take up most of the office space in the building, the KATS office has been asked to find another office, and has been given until Dec. 1 to move, Tabor said.

The commissioners accepted a final audit of the Sequoyah Criminal Justice Authority recently completed by the state auditor. The audit found no discrepancies the commissioners reported. The audit was called for earlier after the authority, which did operate the county jail, turned over operations to the county sheriff last summer, and went dormant.