The Lincoln County Commission is proposing a $1.10 property tax increase and has set a public hearing for June 6 to let the public voice their opinions. The public hearing is set for 6 p.m. in the auditorium at Lincoln Central Academy.
During the budget committee report at last Tuesday’s County Commission meeting, Ricky Bryant, chairman pro tempore and a member of the budget committee, said a motion by Commissioner Anthony Taylor and seconded by Commissioner David Sanders to approve the fiscal year 2023-24 draft budget passed by a 7- 0 vote with one commissioner absent. Bryant said the draft budget will be published in the newspaper and considered in the June 6 public hearing.
“No commission action is required at this time,” Bryant said. “The (budget) committee will recommend approval of the final budget subsequent to the public hearing.” He said commission approval is scheduled for the June 20, 2023 County Commission meeting.
“Does everybody understand this?” questioned Mayor Bill Newman. “This is the proposed budget for the public hearing. Then it will be back before the budget committee and then next month’s commission meeting is when it’s up. Hopefully, we will have a final budget. Does everybody understand that process?”
Newman then entertained a motion “as far as the prescribed procedure which is outlined here that that’s how we will be taking this up. I entertain a motion to that effect.”
Commissioner Anthony Taylor made the motion, seconded by Commissioner Kate Guin and unanimously approved.
Under new business, Commissioner Doug Cunningham, who serves as chairman of the budget committee, responded to the draft budget.
“I would like to try to explain to everyone how we arrived at the budget that’s been presented tonight,” Cunningham said. “Over the last six weeks we have reviewed every budget involving Lincoln County. From the Petersburg Senior Citizen Center to the request made from all the county offices, the jail to the highway department and solid waste. We reviewed it all.”
He said the problem started in reviewing the general fund budget, which is all the courthouse offices, sheriff’s department, jail, etc. “We discovered that due to rising inflation in all expense lines we were almost maxed out,” Cunningham said. “In the past we always had money returned from those line items at the end of the year. The last couple of years we haven’t had that.
“As a result, we ended last year $1.1 million in the hole on the general fund side,” Cunningham said. “That’s almost 16 cents on the tax rate. Last year, for those of us who were commissioners at the time, we voted on a 10% raise for all county employees that only added to our deficit. You throw another year on top of that with the same deficit and we are 46 cents down on the budget just to break even. With that in mind, we reviewed every request made by every entity in the county. Some were one-time requests, but the large majority are recurring expenses.”
He said the requests totaled $2,058,427. Out of those requests, $157,156 in one-time expenses were funded. The expenses included $9,700 for printing forms for the next election; $74,800 for a new freezer at the jail and $40,000 for equipment involving a new computer system called the Guardian at the jail; $30,319 was added for a match on work at the airport.
“We added very few items in the recurring expense column much to the dismay of some government officials,” Cunningham said. “We had to add $45,000 for the expense of having an engineering firm provide our planning component in our planning and zoning office. This is because we have not been able to hire a planning and zoning manager due to the meager salary we are offering for this job.”
Other additions include :
• $4,000 for the trustee’s office due to increased cost of postage and office supplies;
• $25,000 to the sheriff’s budget “due to the fact we could not get all the new vehicles through the state bidding program due to a lack of available vehicles. This is an additional cost because we couldn’t get these vehicles at the state bid price.”
• Recurring cost for the new Guardian software was added to the sheriff’s department;
• $35,000 was added for food supplies for the jail due to the tremendous rise in prices. “We hope that will be enough,” Cunningham said.
• $20,000 was added for testing equipment for Fire and EMA. “We should have been testing every year but have not been doing,” he said.
Cunningham said the $142,500 recurring expenses is 2 cents on the tax rate. “So out of the $2 million in requests, we funded in the budget a little less than $300,000,” he said.
“Salaries are a huge problem for us and even with the 10% we added last year, we are still desperately way behind,” Cunningham said. He said Commissioner Ricky Bryant and the personnel committee devised a new pay scale from a recent salary study. “People weren’t crazy about the salary study, but they really like this pay scale,” Cunningham said. “So hats off to personnel for the work y’all did on that.”
The revised pay scale will cost $250,000 a year to implement, Cunningham said, “but if it passes will raise the salaries of new hires up some to make us more competitive. The budget committee also felt we needed to continue to work on our salaries. Last year we had talked about a 10% raise this year just to try to get us up there some. We felt we needed to add another 5% salary increase to aid in that effort.” He said the new pay scale and the 5% salary increase “to aid in those efforts” will cost an additional 7 cents on the tax rate.
Cunningham said a motion was made in the personnel committee to raise salaries by 10% this year, “but the motion failed. We have got to get the salaries up. If we pass these increases we get up over $15 per hour for courthouse employees.” He said fast food restaurants pay more than $15 starting out. And they can cut back on a shift. “Yet our services must be provided. If we can’t hire enough jailers, we must pay existing ones overtime, which cost us money.” He said court systems, county court clerk’s office and register of deeds must remain open. “We can’t say we’re not going to be open this week because we don’t have enough employees. That’s not an option for us. Our offices can’t close,” he said.
“That’s the kind of hole we’re in,” Cunningham said, adding “it’s amazing how salaries have gone up for everybody” since the pandemic.
“With the 46 cents we were down to begin with and the 9 cents we added for salaries and basic needs, we are at 55 cents needed to fund that side of the budget,” Cunningham said.
“At the same time, we have these problems in the general fund, and we’ve got a massive problem in our school system with overcrowding,” Cunningham said. He said the school board chairman and Dr. Bill Heath, director of schools, let them know last October, and possibly before that, about the overcrowding, especially at Highland Rim. “If we do not take care of this problem now it will certainly be on our doorstep in the next two years, maybe next year. It’s not a problem that’s going away,” Cunningham said.
“This is the entire breakdown on the $1.10 increase that is included in this draft budget,” he said. “This is not something you will vote on tonight. On June 6 we will hold a public hearing to let the public voice their opinions and a final recommendation will be made to the body on that day. We will vote on this budget on June 20 so that provides six weeks from the date of the draft budget approval for the public and for the commissioners to get up to speed and get any questions they need answered.”
The budget committee chairman said the commission “is following what the laws say. We will certainly try to answer questions as we go along.”
Breakdown of property taxes
Vicky Trentham, Lincoln County finance director, gave a breakdown of how property taxes are spent in the current fiscal year 2022-23 budget based on $2.10 property tax rates. She said the budget value per penny is $72,181.
• Total funds — $15,172,422
• Of that number, $6,520,099 goes to the general fund
• Highway and public works gets $1,048,788
School System receives $7,603,535. Of that number:
• Schools general fund receives $4,822,402
• Educational capital projects — $1,161,391
• Debt fund — $1,619,739
Property tax is based on 25% of the assessed property value multiplied by the tax rate.
According to the state Comptroller of the Treasury, real property assessments begins with the creation of a parcel. Once created, the assessor of property goes to work. The parcel must be mapped in its proper location. The conditions surrounding the sale of the parcel must be understood. Finally, the parcel must be appraised, properly classified for assessment, and added to the tax roll.
Tennessee law requires every county to undergo a countywide revaluation of all real property on a 4-, 5-, or 6-year reappraisal cycle. The assessor of property is responsible for the cyclical revaluation with some assistance and oversight from the Comptroller’s Division of Property Assessments. The goal is fair and equitable assessments that reflect market value as of Jan. 1 of the revaluation year. Next year, Lincoln County’s will undergo the revaluation process. Trentham said many times after reassessment, tax rates are lower. She also said once property is reassessed, changes for Lincoln County will go into effect 2024.
