The Bulloch County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday morning unanimously approved a fiscal year 2024 budget with a $10.9 million, 22% increase in projected general fund revenue, to $59.9 million.
Expenditures are projected at $1 million more than that, $60.9 million, with a $1 million drawdown of fund balance earmarked for acquiring land for future county facilities. This budget funds an 8% raise for the county government’s full-year employees, plus hiring for 34 new jobs. The majority of those new positions will be in public safety, including 11 personnel for the Sheriff’s Department and jail and 13 for the Emergency Medical Service.
Despite inflation of about 13% in property values and some real growth in the digest, this will require an increase in millage rates. The rates haven’t been set yet, but the budget for the fiscal year that begins Saturday came with proposals from County Manager Tom Couch and staff for a 1.75-mill increase in the general fund millage and increases in the fire service district rates.
A 1.75-mill increase on the current 11.35-mill general property tax levy would be a 15.4% rate increase. Atop the 13% property value inflation, this would compound to a roughly 30% increase in tax, a calculation not lost on several of the 11 citizens who spoke criticizing the budget and opposing the tax increases during a June 20 hearing.
That hearing, for public input on the budget, was held at 5:30 p.m., and citizens filled the room. Tuesday’s 8:30 a.m. called meeting, where the budget was adopted, was sparsely attended. But two citizens who spoke the previous week signed up to speak again, and criticized the lack of detail in the budget summary and the amount of time the final numbers were available to citizens before the vote.
“Again, I would just implore y’all as y’all go forward to give us as much information as possible,” said Lawton Sack, chairman of the Bulloch County Republican Party. “If you go back in the past years’ budgets, you’ll see that this budget goes into a lot less detail than previous budgets have.”
The budget summary had also been posted to the county website just 14 days before the hearing, he noted.
Sack said he had been misunderstood at the previous hearing when commissioners Chairman Roy Thompson spoke of Sack and others “insinuating getting rid of all” the commissioners in upcoming elections.
“My point to that was when people get their tax bill, those that have not been informed, those that were not in this room and did not hear the discussions and the questions, when they see that increase, we all know who’s going to take the blame for that,” Sack said.
But his point had been about the need for transparency and timely information and not intended as a threat to anyone, he said.
Couch acknowledged that the budget presentation this year had been “condensed … somewhat,” using a “cost centers” approach instead of specific line items. County Chief Financial Officer Kristie King said that a more detailed, line-item budget was being completed this week and promised to do her best to start the budget process earlier for the next fiscal year.
In answer to a question from Thompson, King said that staff members were working on the budget at least six months before the budget summary was posted.
“This is the point that I’m making,” Thompson said. “This just didn’t happen overnight. We had the budget retreat at Georgia Southern, employees this year had to come and tell us what they needed. … We have public comments at every meeting. Why not come if you have a question?”
County department heads and elected constitutional officers were asked to report on their agencies’ needs during a two-day budgeting “retreat” in March at the Paulson Stadium fieldhouse. It was advertised as a public meeting. But no dollar totals for departmental budgets were released at that time.
Sheriff Noel Brown and several of the commissioners also spoke during Tuesday morning’s meeting, supporting the county staff’s position that revenue must be increased to maintain services and catch up with growth that has already occurred.
Commissioner Anthony Simmons had made motion to adopt the budget, seconded by Commissioner Ray Mosley, and the vote was 6-0.
Mosley said he received many calls and comments about the budget in the days before the meeting.
“But the citizens would be just as upset with us if we can’t physically meet our responsibilities and the county can’t pay the bills and can’t afford to take care of the different agencies,” he said. “So it’s a tough call, but we’ve got to step up to the plate.”
3 hearings ahead
In the property tax calculation, King used a 15% estimate in the growth of the tax digest. But a few weeks ago, Chief Tax Appraiser Ronny Newton with the Bulloch County Board of Assessors office estimated the overall increase in the digest at 18%, including 5% real growth and 13% inflation.
After taxpayer appeals of assessments are completed, if the total increase is more than 15%, the commissioners may not have to adopt a full 1.75-mill hike to net the same amount of revenue. Under the Georgia Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, they will have to hold three public hearings before final action on any tax increase, and those hearings are usually held in August.
“Until we get the numbers, we would not want to speculate on any change in the proposed millage,” Couch said in a reply email Wednesday. “However, we know we will base it on the budgeted ad valorem tax revenue. There is a chance that if the digest would produce more revenue than budgeted, (and presumed collected) the millage rate increase could be reduced accordingly, or vice versa.”
Meanwhile, a one-year, state-funded $18,000 (in assessed value) additional homestead exemption promises tax savings of about $388 per owner-occupied home in most of Bulloch County’s unincorporated area, and more where city taxes apply.