County Commission to Consider Raising Property Tax Rate by 29 Cents on June 24

June 2, 2019
By: Dwayne Page

Your DeKalb County property taxes are likely going up this fall

The budget committee of the county commission wrapped up its business for the year Wednesday night and adopted a proposed consolidated budget totaling $45,697,590  and a tax rate of $2.12 per $100 of assessed value for the 2019-20 fiscal year which the county commission will consider for final passage on June 24.

Because more revenue is needed to operate over the next year, according to the county’s financial advisor Steve Bates, the budget committee voted 4 to 1 to recommend a property tax increase of 29 cents (25 cents more for the general fund and an additional 4 cents for schools) which would raise an extra $1.3 million and put the tax rate at $2.12 per $100 of assessed value, up from the current rate of $1.83. One cent of the tax rate generates $47,220.

Budget committee members Jeff Barnes, Jerry Adcock, Anita Puckett, and Sabrina Farler voted in favor but Chairman Dennis Slager voted no.

Without a tax hike, Bates warned that the county general fund is expected to be in the red by $1,681,933 as of June 30, 2020 if spending goes according to the proposed budget. To balance the budget, the county would have to pull the $1.6 million from the fund balance (cash reserves). Even with a 29 cent tax hike, Bates said the county general fund is still projected to run in the red by $473,132 as of June 30, 2020 if all budgeted funding is spent. However, he added the county could manage and possibly grow out of the deficit as long as spending is kept in check.

While most of the proposed tax increase would go to shore up the general fund, Bates said the extra 4 cents ($188,880) for schools is needed to meet the state required local Basic Education Program (BEP) match for education.

Created in 1992, the Basic Education Program (BEP) is the main source of K-12 education funding and distributes over $4.7 billion to public school districts across the state. It has two parts: a state share, and a required local match contributed by local governments.

The county road department would also be getting more local funds in the new budget. While the vast majority of the budget for roads is funded by state allocations from the fuel tax and the bridge and state aid programs, the state requires the county to fund basically a local match referred to as a 5 year average. The county currently provides 3 cents of the property tax rate to help fund roads along with collections from a mineral severance tax. To meet the state’s requirement, the budget committee recommended giving the road department an additional 1 cent of the property tax rate rather than the 2 cent increase the Road Supervisor had requested but the funds ($47,220) from the extra 1 cent will be taken from the county’s capital projects fund.

“We had taken 1 cent away from the road department a couple of years ago and planned to supplement it from the mineral severance tax but as it turned out we were failing to meet our 5 year average by about $23,000. If we don’t meet the 5 year average for roads the state will take away some road funding from the county.

The proposed tax rate is to be divided among the funds as follows:

County General: $1.21.35 cents, up by 25 cents from the current rate of 0.9635 cents
Highway/Public Works: 0.04 cents, up by 1 cent from the current rate of 0.03 cents
General Capital Projects: 0.9 cents, down by 1 cent from the current rate of 0.10 cents
Debt Service: 0.13 cents
General Purpose Schools: 0.65 cents, up by 4 cents from the current rate of 0.61 cents.

Although the budget committee would rather not have had to recommend a property tax increase to the county commission, it felt the move was necessary to meet rising costs of operation, obligations including employee pay raises approved by previous county commissions, and new funding requests including the addition of several new county employees to the payroll.

Budget Committee Chairman Dennis Slager, who had supported some of the new funding requests by county department supervisors, said he could not vote for the overall budget nor the proposed tax hike.

“This budget has some good and bad and for the bad part, I could not vote for  this consolidated budget. The school and highway budgets are good sound  budgets that address and fund current needs. The new spending in county  general, I can support and justify my yes votes by cuts and increases in new  revenues outside of new tax dollars. There was some spending in county  general that I felt was unnecessary, especially when we are dealing with the conditions we are by being $1.6 million in the hole (projections for next year) due to (revenue shortfalls) in the ambulance service and unfunded pay raises from last year going forward this year. I felt we needed to be more conservative with our spending and be more accountable to the taxpayers”, said Slager.

Slager also has concerns with sheriff’s department employee pay increases being tied to the sheriff’s raises as approved by the county commission last year. Giving raises in this manner, Slager said not only impacts the tier system (wage scale) but isn’t fair to other county employees.

During a previous budget committee meeting, Sheriff  Patrick Ray explained that other county employees had been given raises at a percentage of their employers for a while until those employers (county officials) complained that it wasn’t fair because the County Mayor’s employees were getting more money than their workers. Based on those complaints, the county commission dropped that plan and adopted the wage scale for them under which the county now operates.

“The other county official’s employees are separate from us (sheriff’s department employees). They get raises over 20 years under a 13 tier wage scale while we have a 6 tier scale over 8 years and ours are classified as law enforcement and correctional officers and not secretary positions or deputy clerks,” said Sheriff Ray.

Anita Puckett, member of the budget committee, explained her reasons for voting in favor of the consolidated budget and tax raise.

“This year’s budget inherited last year’s approved budgets with several pay raises and no new revenue (to pay for them). We are going into our general fund cash (reserves) due to the fact that these (overall) pay raises were approved and allocated for last year and with no new revenue and that is not feasible. And keeping up with the cost of living and expenses for things like diesel and gas, something had to be done. We know there are some shortfalls and we will look into those further,” said Puckett.

“More than anything I just want the community to be more knowledgeable and educated about why we are doing these things. I think many people just see the numbers and they don’t understand the why. A lot of it is due to staffing needs of our departments and the raises we inherited from last year’s budget. But we are hoping to accrue some revenue from new litigation taxes and other things to help offset that for the future. Also Circuit Court Clerk Susan Martin is going to try and bring in some new revenue to offset some of this. I also want people to understand that even with this tax increase DeKalb County will still be among the top ten counties with the lowest property tax rates in the state,” added Puckett.

Highlights of proposed new spending in the 2019-20 consolidated budget:

*Board of Education: The school board plans to fund a local pay raise for the district’s 225 teachers by $1,200 each and that coupled with a state raise of $800 per teacher would put their overall increase at $2,000 for the coming year. The 200 non-certified staff members would each get a $600 local pay raise

*Circuit Court Clerk: New deputy clerk position to be funded. (Office currently has 3 deputy clerks). According to the wage scale for county general employees, a new worker with one year of service is paid $26,786 plus benefits The budget committee voted to cut a total of $7,000 from  the clerk’s budget in the line items for part time and other salaries.

*Sheriff’s Department and Jail: Two new officer positions to be funded solely from a proposed new litigation tax through the General Sessions Court budget. One other new deputy position would be created and funded by the county through the sheriff’s department budget. And while no new positions would be added to the jail budget, the sheriff plans to promote two existing correctional officers to the rank of corporal as jail supervisors. Each one would get a $2,000 increase in pay under the existing wage scale for sheriff’s department employees for a total of $4,000. The move keeps the sheriff’s department compliant with standards for around the clock jail supervision under standards of the Tennessee Corrections Institute.

*Sheriff’s Department: Three patrol cars to be funded at a cost of $100,000 from the capital projects fund. Sheriff Ray had requested the purchase of five cars.

*DeKalb Fire Department: Two shared firefighter positions to be funded at 20 hours each per week at $10 per hour for a total of $20,800. No two specific individuals would get the jobs. Available firefighters, who are trained and certified, would rotate in and out of the positions as needed. The two fire fighters would be assigned to work out of the main station on King Ridge Road, which serves as the hub of the county fire department.

*DeKalb Fire Department: Fire department spending for maintenance to be increased from $7,500 this year to $20,000 in the new budget. The difference, $12,500 would be taken from the capital projects fund to upgrade and add restrooms to three existing fire halls at Johnson Chapel, Blue Springs, and Keltonburg. Unisex restrooms will be added including a sink and toilet in each of these fire halls.

*DeKalb Fire Department: Funding of $36,100 budgeted to meet a 5% local match for an Assistance to Firefighters Grant which if approved would fund the purchase of another fire truck and related firefighting equipment.

*DeKalb Emergency Management Agency: Funding to pay the EMA Director Charlie Parker a salary of $5,200 for the new year. Parker plans to apply for a federal grant through TEMA which if approved would provide matching funds for the local operation. But in order to get the grant the county must have a paid EMA director. If approved, Parker said an Emergency Management Performance Grant would reimburse the county up to 50% of its costs for EMA operations which would be $13,800 including the director’s salary under the 2019-20 proposed budget. The budget committee’s vote to fund the EMA Director position is conditional upon the grant being funded and Parker’s willingness to accept being the county’s flood plain director, a responsibility he once volunteered to do but later gave up.

*Clerk & Master: Funding of $10,400 for part time employee (Office currently has one deputy clerk)

*Alexandria Senior Citizens: Funding to pay the salary of a full time director of the center at $21,291 as a first year employee plus benefits for a total budget impact to the county of $28,051.

*DeKalb EMS: Funding for director pay raise of $3,000. However request to reinstate the ambulance service day truck crew on weekends was denied by budget committee. In an effort to streamline costs, the county last summer decided to stop the day truck shifts on Saturdays and Sundays from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. while still providing the county coverage with the two other around the clock crews over the weekends. Director Hoyte Hale said there is a need to bring back the day truck. The additional costs to staff it with full time personnel would have been $61,000 per year to the county. The expense would have been less if Hale used  part time staff.

*Smithville-DeKalb County Rescue Squad: The Rescue Squad asked the county to up its contribution from $22, 821 to $34, 821 with the proposed $12,000 increase to be allocated for fuel reimbursement to its member volunteers to recoup some of their personal expense. The budget committee recommended funding only an increase of $3,279.

*Juvenile Court Youth Service Officer: Current salary of $34,275 to be increased to $36,000. The overall cost is partly offset by a $9,000 grant the county receives for the program.

*County Clerk Office:  The clerk requested the budget committee for additional assistance funding for line items of office supplies & other charges. Currently these line items total $3,500 for an entire year. His request to increase it by $3,000 was denied. In October County Commission funded a new deputy clerk for the office in the current budget year and going forward (Office now has four employees)

*Assessor of Property Office: Last July County Commission funded a new employee for the office in the current budget year and going forward (Office now has four employee positions)

Members of the DeKalb County Commission are Dennis Slager and Julie Young in the 1st district, Sabrina Farler and Myron Rhody in the 2nd district, Jenny Trapp and Bobby Johnson in the 3rd district, Dr. Scott Little and Janice Fish-Stewart in the 4th district, Anita Puckett and Jerry Adcock in the 5th district, Jeff Barnes and Matt Adcock in the 6th district, and Bruce Malone and Beth Pafford in the 7th district.

The county commission will meet to consider passage of the new budget and tax rate on Monday, June 24 at 6:30 p.m. in the downstairs courtroom of the courthouse.

June 2, 2019
By: Dwayne Page

A new state law takes effect July 1^st which will require all notation of liens on certificates of titles be performed by county clerks.

“Current law allowed such transactions to be at the discretion of individuals or businesses, meaning one had the option of completing the work locally or mailing it to the state,” said County Clerk James L. (Jimmy) Poss.

“Under the new state law all noting of lien transactions must be completed at county clerk’s offices effective July 1,” he said.

“It’s taken a lot of effort and work to get to this day. For months County Clerks along with vehicle services has worked to reach an agreement and has now made it possible with the support and approval from our state leaders and governor,” said Poss.

“The new bill does create more work and usage of supplies for County Clerks, but it also allows us to collect additional new fees. I personally support the idea and expect better transparency,  and faster and more efficient service to our customers by completing this work locally,” Poss added.

June 2, 2019
By: Dwayne Page

Kids and grown-ups alike had a chance to meet and touch “Otis” a three month old baby opossum Saturday at Edgar Evins State Park

Otis and other wild animals were shown as part of National Trails Day at the park. The observance had an “Opossum” theme in conjunction with a ribbon cutting at the kid friendly half mile Hillside Story Book Trail featuring  the new story “Anybody Home”? by Marianne Berkes and illustrated by Rebeccca Dickinson which tells the tale about Polly Possum who is looking for a home among the forest creatures where she can raise her expected babies.

M2U03001 from dwayne page on Vimeo.

Park visitors were given opossum ears to wear made by Girl Scout Troop 3094 and Andrew Webber, seasonal park ranger, introduced them to Otis.

“We rescued him about three months ago after his mother was attacked by a dog when he was really little. When opossums are first born they live in their mother’s pouch and when they get older they ride around on their mother’s back. Otis’ mother was attacked by a dog and he was the only one that survived the attack. We will have him for the rest of his life. When he is fully grown he will have about 52 teeth. He is a nocturnal animal which means he sleeps during the day and is active at night. Otis will live to be about 10-15 years old,” said Webber.