County budget in place

After numerous budget meetings, hallway conversations and dinner chats at various restaurants, the County Commission approved its budgets for 2003-2004 Monday night on 24-0 votes. On a motion by Buster Norton at the mid-July budget meeting, the committee did not recommend any tax increases this year, though talk of a wheel tax or a second straight property tax increase had taken place. The county property tax rate was set at $1.45 on each $100 of taxable property. The same as it was last year. The county’s general fund will operate on $24.6 million. The Highway Department will operate within a $6.4 million budget and the school system on a budget of $81 million. The General Services Debt Fund will take payments of $8.8 million on bond debts and building notes that total over $100 million in borrowed money. The majority of that borrowing has been to finance school additions according to County Mayor Larry Waters. $905,000 of the General Fund were designated for non-profit gifts. The majority of which went to the counties volunteer fire departments at $589,000; $37k per station with $17,000 each for the Haz Mat unit and the Fire Chiefs fund. The Rescue Squad received $90,000. The commission also passed a new resolution authorizing rates for the county health plan. Insurance costs for the cities and counties have been steadily rising the last few years and the change was to keep pace with the increases. The county will now pick up $350 of the $380 bill for individuals and $220 of the $420 bill for a dependant. The Budget Committee was forced to turn down many departmental request for funding. Property Assesor, Johnny King, received a new full time position which is expected to return ten times the salary costs after the first year. Several full time positions were slotted to part time, with hiring dates in March and April to ease the county costs. Included in this was a if needed position in County Planner David Taylor’s office to deal with the new Storm Water Phase II program the county was forced to adopt. A new ambulance and EMT team to help service Pigeon Forge was included as the only major addition to a bare budget. “Revenues are down, they are down in the cities and they are down across the state,” said Waters early in the process, echoing the feelings of many commissioners.