Property tax increase under review: Rogers vows to shoot down 11 cent hike
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In response, County Executive Kenneth Rogers said he thinks no tax increase is necessary if the county is run efficiently.
“We have got to get back in line on our budget,” Rogers said. “The state’s doing it. If you don’t have it coming in, you don’t need to spend it.”
Rogers also said he is going to take a strong stand against any tax increase.
“I don’t know if this is going to pass through the full court,” Rogers said, “but if it passes, the county executive is going to veto it. An 11 cent increase is really going to be hard on the people of Warren County.
“That’s what I ran on, that I would try to watch over the taxpayer’s money as if it was mine,” he said, “and that’s what I’m going to do.”
Budget and Finance chairman George Smartt said that even though these are hard economic times it was important to implement the tax increase next year to offset a declining fund balance in the county budget. Smartt pointed out the county has been running with a deficit.
“We’re spending more than we’re taking in some departments,” Smartt said. “You’ve got six cents in the sanitation fund, you’ve got three in the ambulance service, which is nine, we’ve got five that we know of next year with education, and basically you’re spending that five this year, it’s just coming out of fund balance,” Smartt added, referring to the money needed to fund the retirement for support personnel in the education system that came up unexpectedly this year, “so that’s 14 cents, plus the 20 cents in general fund is actually a deficit of 34 cents that we’re spending this year.
“We’re proposing to raise taxes 11 cents, which puts it down to 23 cents, so we’re spending 23 cents more than we’re taking in.”
Smartt said it’s important to slow the decrease in the budget’s fund balance.
“The state requires us only to have a positive fund balance, I think, in everything but the school system and in debt service,” Smartt said. “If we projected a budget which left $1 in the general fund at the end of the year, that would be legal in the state’s eyes. But that’s not good business on our part if we start out with $1 million and end up with a $1 balance,” adding that was just an example.
Smartt said bleeding the fund balance dry could leave nothing on hand for emergencies.
“It’s like a savings account. We’ve been taking more money out of savings than we’ve been putting back in for a long time,” he said.
The committee members said they were aware the tax increase will be a hard sell.
“We’re going to be strapped to get 13 votes,” said committee member Herschel Wells. “That’s going to be a fine line.”
Smartt says the committee will have a continuing resolution on hand should the budget be voted down so the county can operate while the budget is revised and resubmitted for approval.