Politics

Commissioners eye taxes, garbage fee

By Bill Moss, Published: January 20, 2016

Henderson County commissioners, crunching numbers in a daylong budget retreat in the Historic Courthouse, uttered the T word several times and talked about assessing a $20 annual fee on property owners to offset losses at the county landfill.

In both cases the commissioners were tossing out ideas to bridge gaps between revenue and expenses. Increasing the property tax was one proposal for filling the gap in the general fund and the garbage fee was one idea among many to close a funding gap in the pay-as-you-go landfill operation, which serves as the household recycling center and transfer station for garbage collected in the county. Commissioners took no action on either.
Henderson County Manager Steve Wyatt guided the board through a detailed look at past, present and future finances, the upshot being that the county faces a $2 million deficit if it continues to provide all the services it provides now and follows through on capital spending for new schools and other county improvements. Add in the gap between available revenue and debt service for more than $100 million in capital spending and the deficit grows even more. At one point, Commissioner Michael Edney said the board would need to talk about a 4-cent property tax to bridge the gap. The commissioners took no action on what may have been more of a rhetorical stab in the dark than a real proposal.

It would not be the first time commissioners have predicted a tax increase and then backed off. The commissioners have stayed on a conservative fiscal track for years. It has kept a 51.36-cent tax rate since 2011, finished the year with lower expenses than budgeted, brought in more revenue than projected and refinanced its long-term debt to get lower rates and lower debt payments.
The board is confronting a big and expensive capital construction wish list — including a new career academy at BRCC, a new or renovated Edneyville Elementary School, a new or renovated Hendersonville High School and a new emergency services headquarters.
This would not be the first time the commissioners have toed the line on a tax increase and then backed off. In past board retreats in January, the board has looked at a gap between revenues and spending and found ways to avoid a property tax increase. The need for an increase would diminish greatly — if not vanish completely — if voters OK a quarter-cent sales tax increase on Nov. 8. The sales tax would raise about $2.5 million, or roughly the same amount generated by a 2-cent property tax increase. Commissioners in the past have also managed to time new capital borrowing when past debt is paid off, creating more capacity for borrowing at the same level of debt service.
As for the garbage fee, County Engineer Marcus Jones reported that reserves of the solid waste enterprise fund had dropped from $3.8 million to $299,096. He attributed the loss to a $4 million investment in improvements at the landfill, reduced use of the landfill during the recession and competition from dumps with lower tipping fees. One option for increasing revenue was to require local haulers to use the Henderson County landfill. Commissioners were not receptive to that option.
Commissioner Bill Lapsley said charging every property owner a $20 “availability fee” would generate enough to close the gap.
Commissioners said they had questions about how the fee would be applied. Commissioner Tommy Thompson asked what would happen in the case of an apartment complex with 200 units on one parcel of land. No one had an immediate answer.