News

Revenue-neutral tax rate funds $195 million county budget

By Bill Moss, Published: June 5, 2023

Henderson County commissioners on Monday night adopted a $195 million budget for the new fiscal year that includes a revenue neutral rate of 43.1 cents per $100 valuation and salvages a fund for upkeep of K-12 schools and Blue Ridge Community College.

Left unresolved until Monday night was whether commissioners would need to raise the revenue neutral rate in order to continue the ongoing MRTS program — maintenance, repair, technology and security. MRTS had been set up as a special account paid for with 5 cents on the property tax levy. County Manager John Mitchell and the finance staff found a way to avoid that and pay for MRTS by scaling back the size of a major courthouse-jail expansion, chopping a proposed $1 million renovation project and drawing on the county's reserves. K-12 schools would get $4.6 million a year and BRCC would get $2.3 million.

Other budget highlights:

• Education, public safety and human services account for 74 percent of total spending.
• Mitchell cut an appropriation for future debt service on a courthouse and jail expansion from $7.2 million — which was initially drafted to cover a $200 million construction project — to $4.6 million, enough to cover a $150 million project. Called JACAR, for judicial complex, annex and renovation, the plan suffered a setback, at least for now, when the board voted 3-2 to reject a preconstruction contract with the project's management team, Haskell Cooper.
• The board agreed to appropriate $18.7 million in fund balance to balance the budget, although for a variety reasons when the county has appropriated money from the rainy-day fund it has not needed it in the end. Among the factors are the county's history of spending less on operations and collecting more revenue than the budget projects and salary lapse for unfilled job openings — generally around 80 fulltime positions at any given time. The last time the coun spent fund balance to balance the budget was 2013.
• Sheriff Lowell Griffin endorsed a pay plan Mitchell drafted for sheriff's deputies and other personnel, although no details of the rates were provided on Monday night. "We're still working and finalizing the details of that but I think we're at a really good place right now," Griffin said.
• Despite concerns expressed last month over fire tax rates, the budget ratifies the rates requested by all 12 rural volunteer fire & rescue departments. Commissioners said chiefs had been able to explain and justify their proposed budgets, citing personnel expense and runaway inflation of vehicle and equipment costs.

Commissioners uniformly praised Mitchell, Assistant County Manager Amy Brantley and the budget staff for their work since last fall in drafting the nearly $200 million spending plan and especially for finding a way to trim the tax rate by 13 cents per $100 valuation.