The Decatur County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday night to extend the employment agreements of Gary Breedlove, county administrator, and Brown Moseley, county attorney, until December 31, 2015.

The vote was taken when the commissioners returned to open session after a brief closed session. The vote to extend Breedlove’s contract was unanimous and his compensation will remain unchanged at $7,000 monthly.

The timing to extend the contract of Moseley concerned commissioner Russell Smith as he cast the lone no vote for the extension.

“I don’t think we should be voting on anything extending past January 1 when the new commissioners come in and that’s what we are doing now,” said Smith. “For the past five years, every first meeting in January, we vote on the county attorney and the county clerk. And now we are doing it different.”

Commission chairman Frank Loeffler said there weren’t any rules against changing the contract earlier.

“We did look it up and we have every right to (extend the contract),” Loeffler said.

Commissioner Dennis Brinson made the motion. Commissioner Butch Mosely was not present at the meeting, but participated via telephone.

Brown Moseley’s contracted compensation also will remain unchanged. He will be paid a $3,000 monthly retainer, which covers the first 50 working hours. Any additional billable hours past 50, Moseley will be paid $100-per-hour for general services and at $125-per-hour for litigation-related work.

Earlier in the meeting, the commission passed the fiscal year 2014-2015 budget. The approved budget includes total revenues of $27.67 million and total expenditures of $29.03 million, a variance of $1.36 million. This budget does not include any millage rate increases.

The motion passed 5-1, with Smith voting against it. Smith said he didn’t agree with funding the Pines Golf Course without contributing funds to the City of Bainbridge’s recreation department. Non-city residents participate to Bainbridge’s recreation programs without any extra costs.

“This is the best budget we have had in the past four or five years,” Loeffler said. “We have been able to add some things back into the budget that we had to cut in years past.”

Specifically, Loeffler mentioned pay raises for county employees, the county absorbing the increases in employee health insurance costs, fully funding The Pines golf course, reinstating funding for River Town Days, and reinstating funding to the Bass Tournament fund.

The employee pay raises will total roughly $230,000, the equivalent of $1,000 per full time employee. Each department director will determine the amount of each employee’s pay increase.

Read the full budget here.