County commissioners Monday approved the Fiscal 26-27 operating budget, maintaining the 80.5 cents per $100 valuation property tax rate and instituting major reductions for the coming year.
“This is a very lean budget,” said Finance Director Melanie Hester.
The $105 million budget was balanced using $2,364,954 from the fund balance, slightly less than originally proposed.
Hester reminded the board that the county has taken multiple hits from different directions over the past few years, including the $2 million tax release for International Paper, new laws regarding healthcare and jailed inmates, and the lack of federal COVID funding. Sales taxes have not kept pace with inflation, she said, and rising fuel costs have caused expenses to rise in all departments. The county has also not seen any major increases in property tax collections. Another major expense is an additional $500,000 in health care costs.
Among the austerity measures are no raises or Cost of Living Adjustments for county employees, allowing some positions to remain unfilled, and encouraging the use of online options as opposed to travelling to training whenever possible.
No jobs are lost in the new budget, Hester said, but the county will now implement a policy of leaving positions unfilled while vacation and comp time payments are made to departing employees, to prevent “double dipping” by paying replacement workers at the same time.
She said the county may also temporarily consider not posting vacancies except in vital positions.
No capital outlay is included in the budget, Hester said, which will require commissioners to further dip into the fund balance for unanticipated expenses such as HVAC or building repair, and replacement vehicles.
Hester assured the board that all departments are being urged to stay well within their budgets, and that county staff will “work hard not to use” the $2.3 million pulled from the county’s reserves.
Commissioner Giles “Buddy” Byrd cast the sole dissenting vote against the budget. Commissioners Laverne Coleman made the motion approving the budget, and Ricky Bullard seconded the measure.
“It’s not exactly perfect,” Coleman said. “This is just like your home budget – we’re having to make some painful cuts. It’s like life. Sometimes you have to pull your belt a little tighter and take it up a notch, and hope you can let it out later on.” Bullard noted that the new budget does not eliminate any jobs.
Byrd said he felt the county could have done a better job.
“This budget is scary it’s so lean,” he said. “What is going to happen when a $67,000 air conditioner goes out?
“The sheriff’s office has no new vehicles,” he noted, and asked Chief Deputy Jerome McMillian how many vehicles in the sheriff’s office fleet have less than 100,000 miles. McMillian said that around 20 of the 102 vehicles in the CCSO garage are below 100,000.
“At some point maintenance is going to cost some money,” Byrd said. He also criticized moving the clerk of court’s office to the main courthouse, which Byrd said costs $500,000 a year in security. Byrd did not offer a source for that estimate.
He also said the county government is “too spread out” and he felt some other departments could have seen further cuts.
“We operated out of much smaller quarters for a long time and did it well,” Byrd said.
The commissioner also emphasized that he was not advocating raising property taxes, which have remained the same since 2008 except for a half-cent cut.
He warned that he felt the county is on dangerous ground.
“Where is the money going to come from if something happens?” he said. “We used to have a big old pie we could get money out of, but that’s flatter than a pancake now.”
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