JOHN COFFELTEditor

Coffee County agencies that provide services during the Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival are going to be on the hook, budgetary speaking, for overtime hours to be incurred.

According to discussions held during two committee meetings Feb. 21, involving department heads of at least three county agencies, and the county mayor, a letter was received from the festival similar in content to the one last year that informed the city that the festival would not be reimbursing the county for those expenses.

The move is due to large event ticket fee, $5 for each ticket sold over $400 on gatherings of an attendance of at least 500.

According to County Mayor Judd Matheny, the county estimates much less than $100,000 will be incurred as overtime costs, compared to the potential $400,000 in fees.

“Barring something extraordinary, we’re going to be fine,” Matheny assured committee members of Heath, Welfare and Recreation.

Matheny expressed confidence that the county will once again form an amicable relationship with the festival.

Yet some departments noted that a memo from the county Accounts and Budgets office caught them off guard.

“We haven’t included that overtime pay in our requests for this budget, Director of Emergency Management Agency said.

Michael Bonner, Coffee County Emergency Medical Service Chief said that, “the memo I received from Marianna (Edinger, Director of that department) led me to believe that I need to put that in my budget….”

“It’s the right plan, but I didn’t put that $21-22,000 that I incur every year in this budget that I’m living now because I didn’t know until a couple of weeks ago that it was supposed to come out of my budget,” Bonner said.

Normally after the festival, county agencies hand Bonnaroo a list of expenses like overtime, fuel and expenses. Starting last year, the festival informed the county that those costs would come from fees that the county levied at large gatherings. The language of the resolution that passed the Tennessee General Assembly as a private act was worded so that virtually only Bonnaroo was impacted.

John has been with the Manchester Times since May 2011. John has won Tennessee Press Association awards for Best News Photo and placed in numerous other categories. John is a 1994 graduate of Tullahoma High School, a graduate of Motlow State Community College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He lives in Tullahoma, enjoys painting, dancing and exploring the outdoors.