By Katie Northcott, News Director
The Coffee County Budget & Finance Committee has finalized a budget proposal to appear before the full County Commission for approval.
The proposal fulfills all of the county department heads’ project requests and features a three percent pay increase for city employees. The three percent pay increase was introduced at the June 11 meeting of the committee. The pay increase brought the county’s projected deficit to nearly $2 million.
At the committee’s most recent meeting on June 18, the committee adopted the state’s certified property tax rate of 1.4389%, slightly higher than the rate predicted by the county. At the June 4 meeting of the committee, County Mayor Dennis Hunt said he thought the state would set the rate at 1.4228%.
Hunt said the higher than predicted rate is still lower than the rate that was in place before this year’s property reappraisal.
“Everybody needs to understand our tax rate went down, so we’re revenue neutral in the county,” Hunt said.
The certified property tax rate brings the county’s projected deficit down from $1,944,945 to $1,771,288. Committee members encouraged the public not to panic about the projected deficit.
“We’re starting out with a deficit because of the method that we used to be generous with our expenditures, overestimating them perhaps and underestimating our revenues so that we stay safe,” committee member Dowe Jones said.
Jones also emphasized that the county had performed better than projected in previous budgets.
The County Commission will discuss the budget proposal at its meeting at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 23 at the Meeting Hall in the Coffee County Administrative Plaza.
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