COLDWATER MI (WTVB) - If you’ve been following the saga of the budget problems for Branch County and the impending layoff of deputies at the Sheriff’s Department, you’ll want to know that the date of the next Board of Commissioner’s finance committee meeting has been changed from Friday of this week to tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. at the courthouse.

The committee meetings are open to the public. And speaking of public, the county government’s spending plan for 2013 will be the subject of a public hearing during the full board of commissioner’s regular meeting next Tuesday.

 Next year’s budget is scheduled to be finalized and adopted at the Commission’s last meeting of the year, which is set for Thursday, December 20^th.

The final finance committee session will be two days earlier, on Tuesday, December 18^th. At this point, plans call for 7 road patrol deputies to be laid off at the end of this month. A new proposal unveiled last Friday by Sheriff-elect John Pollack and retiring Sheriff Warren Cannon would allow 7 other deputies to stay on the job that were expected to be let go because of the November Sixth defeat of a millage to fund the road patrol.