Putnam Commissioners Approve Budget With 18.8 Cent Property Tax Increase

After about an hour of discussion Monday night, Putnam County Commissioners approved a new fiscal year budget with an 18.8 cent property tax increase.

The county will use some $6.5 million in fund balance to make up the budget deficit, reducing the reserves to about $18 million. That’s still above the Comptroller’s request that a county maintains 20 percent of its expenditures in reserve. Putnam County stands at roughly 33 percent.

“I think it’s wise to take that money out if we have it there, put it through there, wait till next budget season to see where we’re at,” Commissioner Vinnie Faccinto said. “Because I’m not comfortable going back to the taxpayers to ask them for money when we have money in savings.”

Commissioner Sam Sandlin reminded his colleagues that the original tax increase came in at some 50 cents when the budget committee began its work. During its final meeting, the number started at just under 28 cents. Sandlin said the county must look long-term.

“It didn’t just fall out of the sky, we really worked hard on this,” Sandlin said. “And so if you want the things that’s going to keep the quality of life for us and put the marketplace jobs in place and do law enforcement and do the when you call the ambulance, it comes. If you want to do all those things, you’re going to have to pay for it.”

The total expenditures of some $257 million passed by a 16-8 vote. That factors all county expenditures including the school system. The general fund includes some $59.85 million in expenses. Commissioners voting against the budgeted expenditures included David Andrews, Chris Cassetty, Kathy Dunn, Troy Johnson, Dale Moss, Cathy Reel, Robert Riddle, and Theresa Tayes.

The tax rate of $2.66 cents passed by a 22-2 final vote. Reel and Tayes again voted no.

Andrews suggested taking some $800,000 in additional reserves to bring the property tax increase to 15 cents. That plan failed by a 13-11 vote.

Porter said he did not support a further decrease to the county’s reserves, which currently sit around $24.5 million. While he admitted the current amount is too high, he said commissioners are using a short-term solution in taking an unheard-of amount to fund ongoing expenses.

“I know the theory behind the commissioners that supported that in the Budget Committee was that hopefully economy will stay good, interest rates will stay high like they are, where we’re bringing in a lot of interest on our fund balances and new revenue will come in with the new jail addition and things will be good,” Porter said. “And so I just want you to go in eyes wide open that should we have a downturn in the economy or something happen, we could be back next year having to do something else.”

Andrews earlier said he would like to take money out of capital expenditures to help reduce the tax increase. But Commission Chair Ben Rodgers explained property taxes do not pay for those expenses.

The new budget includes 92 new employees, with the majority staffing the new Justice Center. New full time firefighters and EMS workers are also part of the plan. The County Budget Committee also approved a marketplace pay adjustment to bring salaries closer to both the levels suggested by a new market study. The raises tally some $3.3 million in additional expenses, before calculating benefits.

Reel said she opposed what she termed, in some cases, “excessive raises” of $20,000.

“There’s a lot of people that work for this county for 20 years, and they’re not getting raises,” Reel said.

Commissioner Jonathan Williams countered that the large raises are due to the county-paid-for study that showed certain jobs not in line with the going pay rate.

“This is my third term as county Commissioner, and during my time here, I’ve never seen it done,” Williams said. “We have cost of living increases that are usually a fixed dollar amount or a fixed percentage across the board. We also have step increases. But this is something unusual that we haven’t done. And because we haven’t done this on a regular basis, this is why we’re so far behind and this is why certain jobs are getting such large increases.”

The property tax increase will add about $12 per month on the tax bill for a $300,000 home.