News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Very few changes in the new $1.7 million fiscal year budget approved on first reading by the Byrdstown Board of Aldermen.
The budget’s general fund has a slight increase from the current fiscal year. Byrdstown Mayor Sam Gibson said the majority of the increase comes from grants to upgrade the downtown area and to repave parking lots.
“And our biggest thing on our General Fund is your sales tax,” Gibson said. “What comes in, so whenever we suffer, the county suffers, and the schools suffer.”
Gibson said that he budgeted sales tax to be $330,000 but with some recent storm damage causing some campgrounds to close he would lower the sales tax revenue.
The property tax will remain unchanged for the new fiscal year, at 0.3498. Gibson said he is going to keep the property tax rate the same as last year even though property appraisals have gone up.
“Little things that can effect that and we are sort of in that predicament right now,” Gibson said. “you know if I was doing this budget right now, I would drop that about $10,000 just because of this one issue.”
Gibson said that he and the board should start to look at paving some roads again since the last time they did a paving road project was years ago.
“We still have a few roads that are gravel and few areas that need to be developed and taken over by the city,” Gibson said. “and when we do we will need to gravel those and so those are things that General Fund is in charge of, so General Fund is in real good shape.”
The Public Transportation Budget for the upcoming fiscal year is $88,415 which is a $38,565 increase. Park expenditures are rising a some $4,650 from the current budget. Majority of the increase is for maintenance and repairs.
