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| Property taxes raised |
By: Mary Jean Hall, Press Staff
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Posted: Friday, August 3, 2012 3:00 pm
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The time has come. After months of deliberating, the Weakley County Commission finally passed a budget for the upcoming year, which includes a property tax increase.
Weakley County property owners will be facing an 11-cent tax increase from $2.06 to $2.17 per $100 of assessed land.
The commission met at its regular time on Monday, and after a property tax increase of 2.5 cents was proposed to raise county employees’ salaries by two percent, which would raise the tax rate to $2.195, the commission called for a recess to ensure that the increase would be enough to cover all of the salaries and benefits.
The county’s Finance, Ways, and Means Committee met just before the commission meeting to crunch the numbers.
FWM committee chair Roger Stewart explained where the proposed salary increase would leave the county taxpayers.
“We’ve been running numbers all day,” said Stewart during the commission meeting. “$396,402 would be the total cost of a two percent raise. In order to fund that, we’d need an additional raise of 6.72 cents and I don’t think we can afford it.”
According to Stewart, improvements have been made in most of the school buildings in the county, there have been necessary repairs made to the courthouse roof and HVAC system, and all county services have been improved with no property tax increase. The fund balances in all funds, but especially the County General and Highway Funds, have become dangerously low, according to administration.
Evidently, while the Debt Service fund reflects a fund balance in excess of $5.4 million on June 30, 2012, $4.2 million of that is reserved to liquidate the debt on the Detention Center (Jail). According to the administration, inadequate fund balances cause case flow problems requiring the borrowing of money by issuing revenue anticipation notes.
Commissioner Kevin McAlpin explained that his intent of the two percent salary increase was for non-certified county employees and not certified employees. McAlpin moved to give a two percent raise to all non-certified county employees to be effective Jan. 1, 2013.
The commission failed that motion with seven in favor, and nine against.
The commission went to vote on the proposed budget, which was Resolution 2013-01.
The budget passed with 14 in favor, two opposed, and two absent.
Commissioners McAlpin and Scott Fortner voted against it and Dale Overton and James Bynum were absent.
The commission then voted on Resolution 2013-02, which fixed the tax levy at $2.17.
The county general fund rate is 61 cents, highway fund is 22 cents, general purpose school is 74 cents, and debt service is 60 cents.
The resolution passed with 11 in favor, five against, and two absent.
Commissioners John Salmon, Eric Owen, Julia Rich, Roger Stewart, Mike Medling, Tommy Jones, Earl Wright, Bob Bell, Jack Vincent, Sam Sinclair, and James Westbrook voted for the proposed tax rate of $2,17 while commissioners Joe Farmer, Larry Taylor, Fortner, David Hawks, and McAlpin voted against it.
The next regular meeting of the county commission is set for Sept. 17 at 5:50 p.m.
WCP 8.02.12
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