Commissioners determined to avoid tax increase

By CHARLES W. JOHNSON / News Editor for the Southern Standard

DAVID HILL

With the majority of county commissioners dead set against any sort of property tax increase, the Budget and Finance Committee was left scrambling during a specially called meeting last night to find the cuts necessary to make up the 11-cent increase it had initially proposed.

Though much has been made of the sales tax increase proposed by the city, Budget and Finance members agreed it would have little influence on the current budget, noting the money wouldn’t start coming in until well into the next fiscal year.

“This cannot affect our budget process this year,” said Commissioner George Smartt. Committee members did indicate they were amenable to the sales tax increase, but it would require some study before the county entered into a binding agreement with the city.

“It’s not something we have to do next week,” said Commissioner David Hill. “We’ve got time to work out an agreement.”

Smartt then led the committee back to the project at hand, saying the county would have to cut about half a million dollars to compensate for the 11-cent tax increase which will not pass.

The members agreed it would take some tough cuts across the board, including cuts to the library and local non-profit organizations.

Smartt noted it would be hard to get the individual departments to cut on their own, and said the Budget and Finance Committee might wind up making the cuts arbitrarily and would have to figure out how to do that fairly for everyone.

“One school of thought is to take the spending of the various departments and divide that into whatever percentage the shortfall was, and take that percentage away from each department,” Smartt said.

Committee members, however, pointed out the education budget couldn’t be reduced, and other departments like the highway department and the sheriff’s department also presented problems with that idea.

In the end, the committee decided to have Director of Accounts Linda Hillis try to come up with proposed cuts from each department.

“We’re going to meet on Monday night with specific figures for each committee that they’re going to have to find,” said Smartt. “Either they’re going to have to come up with revenue, or they’re going to have to come up with the cuts. Obviously they aren’t going to come up with the revenue, so each committee will be told a certain amount of dollars they need to cut out of their various programs and departments.”

Smartt said the committee would be looking into the sales tax proposal as well.

“It’s my feeling that yes, we’ll be involved with them,” he said. “We’re going to recommend that they go ahead and pass the resolution, they’ve got to do that Monday night. Then, as we mentioned, we’ve got 40 days from that point to get involved in it,” he added, “And I’m sure we’ll be involved in it.”