Commissioners wrestle with finalizing budget on time

The county budget may scarcely make it in under the wire this year, with some commissioners predicting talks will run into September with the finished document barely meeting the state?s October deadline.

At a meeting last Friday, Budget and Finance Committee chairman George Smartt said all of the county?s budgets have been turned in to the Budget and Finance Committee save one, the school system, which reportedly carries a teacher raise package that would require a substantial tax increase to fund. The school system budget was approved by the School Board on May 30, but has not passed the Education Committee.

Smartt says time is running out and any budget that includes a tax increase will probably be voted down, further complicating matters.

?I don?t see how it?s going to get done,? Smartt said.

Committee member Michael Martin agreed.

?We?re probably going to have to have a special called meeting in September some time,? Martin said.

Although the majority of budgets have posted increases, some, like the jail budget, haven?t come in with the major increases predicted earlier. This may not be the case with the school budget, which promises to be one of the most controversial as far as a potential tax increase is concerned.

According to figures presented at an Education Committee meeting in late May, the teacher raise package would include an across-the-board raise of $2,500 for every bachelor-level teacher and $2,000 for every master?s level teacher. At that time Director of Schools Dr. Jerry Hale estimated the raises would cost approximately $850,000, which would represent a possible property tax increase of around 17.5 cents, with a penny of property tax bringing in around $48,406 in revenue.

A meeting of the Education Committee was called for Monday, July 17, but due to the absence of two of the committee?s five members, committee chairman Bill Zechman felt it was not a good idea to make a formal decision on the proposed budget until all the committee members had a chance to examine and discuss it at length.

But as a result of scheduling difficulties between committee members and school officials, the first date available for all the parties to meet was this Saturday, July 29, which, even if the Education Committee passes the budget at that meeting, will put the Budget and Finance Committee on a tight schedule of its own to have the budget ready for publication 10 days prior to the commission?s next meeting Aug. 21.

?And that?s if we do get the Education Committee information by the following Monday, which will be the 31st,? Smartt said. ?The drop dead date to get it to the paper is Aug. 9 in order to be published 10 days before the August meeting.

?We?ll probably be meeting every day that week,? Smartt said, noting the budget really needs to be done prior to the installation of the newly elected commission.

?This commission at least knows some of what?s going on,? Smartt said. ?(Some of) the new commission would be overwhelmed and totally lost.?

Whatever the outcome, one thing is certain, according to director of accounts Linda Hillis.

?It has to be passed and in effect by Oct. 1,? Hillis said.