In late-June in a 4 to 2 vote, the county council passed $85.6 million in total spending for the fiscal year 2023-24, the budget that started this July 1. I voted “No” for a variety of reasons I want to explain.
High Revenue and Savings:
Total revenue is up from $75.5 million to $84.4 million or a 12.1 percent year over year. That’s a lot.
There is lots of savings too. The total unassigned general fund cash balance was $32.7 million, so that’s a 62% cash position relative to the general fund budget. The standard is 15% to 25%. Because cash on hand is so high and interest rates have gone up, the county has picked up another $1.5 million in new revenue in the form of interest. A windfall.
At the final votes there were budget amendments to the 2022-23 and the 2023-24 budgets too. Most of it was just more spending. There is little concern for the taxpayer with all this new revenue and savings.
Offset Some Of Tax Hikes:
From the start, with all this new revenue and high savings there should have been effort to offset some of the 10 mill record tax hike ($3.5 million in new taxes) of two years ago, and the year after year fire tax increases.
For example, look at the fire tax hikes in Pickens. In 2017 the fee was $135 per house; it was then $140 in 2018; $175 in 2019 and 2020; $90 to $230 in 2021; then the fire tax was raised to 23 mills on all homes, vacant land, cars, motorcycles, RV’s and business property.
In 2016 the fire taxes were $4.6 million. This year it is $7.9 million. Some of that 8% annual increase is due to more homes being built, true, but most of it is due to fire tax hikes along the way.
Tax Cut Proposal:
Putting together the huge amount of revenue growth, the cash rich position of the county, mounting interest earned against the historic tax increases of the past couple years, there was an opportunity to roll back the property tax rate some.
I said this 3 times during the process, made a motion to cut the tax rate 2.5 mills or ($1.5 million) and it failed to pass council. Add in I was a strong proponent of hiring full-time litter crews and fixing the unfair advantages in the library’s financing system, neither which passed, so I had many reasons not to vote for the budget.
Flaw In Budget Process:
The county budget process promotes more spending and higher taxes.
The first step in the process is the councilmen talk about spending priorities in a qualitative way. The council will say, for instance, xyz, abc and efg are top spending. Second, the administration then creates a budget proposal spending every dime of new revenue that is expected to come in. For instance, if revenue is expected to be up 12% the next year, the administration will present a budget that spends all 12%. They then drop this 100 page budget proposal on the council table. At that point, it is very hard to change anything in the proposal and very few changes are made to that proposal.
New Budget Process:
That first budget meeting should be the council setting spending priorities in a qualitative way like above, but also lay down some quantitative markers. That is, the council should then ask how much is revenue expected to be up next year? 12% in this example. The chairman should then ask are we going to spend that all? If not, how much, and how much will go to saving and a possible tax cut? In my case, the plan would have been revenue is growing 12%, so 9% will be spent and 3% will go back to the taxpayer in the form of a property tax cut to offset the historic tax increase of the past few years. Then all that should be put on paper, voted on and called first reading.
Then the administrations creates a budget that grows spending only 9% with those spending priorities. I mentioned cutting taxes early on, but under the current process where the first budget proposal is created by the administration and it spends all the money, my proposal had no chance because the current process favors spending and raising taxes.
