April 23, 2025
By: Dwayne Page
As the county commission ponders which direction to go with a jail project, it will also soon be confronted with what to do with the 51-cent property tax increase for debt service adopted last year. Once a tax rate is established by the commission, it must remain in place for a year until passage of the following budget. The new fiscal year begins July 1, 2025.
The county’s current tax rate is $2.51 per $100 of assessed value , up from $2.00 the previous year and all of the increase (51 cents) was added to debt service in anticipation of funding proposed construction of a judicial center/jail project through the issuance of bonds not to exceed $65 million but that effort failed at the polls during a public referendum last November. Although the bond issue did not move forward the property tax increase still remains in place for another jail construction project yet to be approved.
During Tuesday night’s budget committee meeting, County Mayor Matt Adcock said the county needs to make a decision on the jail issue before passage of the 2025-26 budget.
“Once you pass your budget you cannot change your tax rate (during the year) and you cannot change where your money goes. Once you pass 51 cents in debt service its just stuck there,” said County Mayor Adcock. “We have just accumulated about $3.4 million in our debt service. They (county commission) really need to make a decision on the jail before we pass this budget because we can’t keep the 51 cents in debt service if we are not paying it toward some kind of debt. We would either have to take it out and put it in the general fund, capital projects, or wherever you want that 51 cents to go. This (budget) committee will decide that. But you will not know how much to put in debt service to pay for a jail if they (commission) don’t decide what they want to build or where they want to put it or whatever they are going to do. We need to know what we are building before this budget passes,” said County Mayor Adcock.
If the county is to eventually build a new jail to meet state certification standards, a site has to be selected, either at the current location or somewhere else.
During a three-hour meeting Monday night, April 7 the jail committee of the county commission met to discuss several options for land purchase and costs and to again explain to the public why a new jail is needed. During the public comment period later in the meeting, the committee took questions from a large group of residents who turned out to give their opinions and, in some cases to express their frustrations.
Sixteen people took to the podium to speak, and their concerns ranged from outright opposition to building a new jail especially in their neighborhoods to keeping construction costs to a minimum if a new jail is built.