Murphy – Cherokee County commissioners agreed on a way to avert a property tax rate increase while also approving a cost-of-living adjustment for employees in the 2020-21 fiscal year budget.
The budget proposed by officials last month initially included an increase in property taxes to offset loss of revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, after discussion, commissioners decided to support County Manager Randy Wiggins’ initial recommendation to postpone two projects that would have cost nearly the same amount of money projected to be lost due to COVID-19.
Officials postponed renovation of the National Guard Armory on James A. Mulkey Drive, which would have cost about $385,000. They also postponed construction of an Emergency Management Services station on Peachtree Street, which could cost about $1.6 million. Officials expect a 25 percent decrease in sales tax revenue due to COVID-19, which calculates to a $1.7 million shortfall.
With the postponement of those two projects, commissioners feel the county can weather the storm through the next fiscal year using the fund balance. Some officials are even optimistic that revenue lost from business shutdowns in the spring will recover once health confidence returns and the election is over.
“This is not a normal recession; this was an artificial shutdown by the federal and state government,” Commissioner C.B. McKinnon said at a budget hearing on June 8. “The nation still has confidence in the economy. That’s why I’m so optimistic that our fourth-quarter numbers are going to really look good.”
County officials will move forward with an emergency communications infrastructure project by appropriating $549,000 from next fiscal year’s budget. The project will allow the county to take advantage of radio towers managed by state police, thereby improving communications and dispatch response time.
Commissioners also designated an additional $4,000 above the school system’s appropriation of $7,075,540 to purchase shoes for custodial and maintenance staff. When asked if the county normally provides funds for this specific request, Wiggins said, “No, not for maintenance and custodial. We only provide shoes for EMS, law enforcement, detention and some of our solid waste staff for safety-related reasons.”
In addition to critical expenditures such as four police cruisers, a detention transport vehicle, replacement of the jail plumbing system and improvements to the landfill, the new fiscal budget will include a 2 percent cost-of-living increase for some county employees.
If the loss of sales tax revenue negatively impacts next fiscal year’s budget more than expected, commissioners agreed to fund the pay increase using money the county saved by restoring and reinstalling the lantern atop the county courthouse themselves instead of using outside contracting firms. The county saved more than $400,000 by doing the lantern project themselves, and the employee pay increase will cost a little less than $280,000 each year.
Commissioners decided not to fund Andrews Rescue Squad in next fiscal year’s budget and declined to renew their service contract, which only runs through June 30. Lawmakers argued the lack of response from squad members did not warrant continuing to pay the department $70,000 each year.
Squad members argued that radio communication problems caused the lack of response and asked for another year to address the matter. However, commissioners ultimately decided to cut the expense because the Valleytown Fire & Rescue Department agreed to continue covering the area for no additional cost to the county.
“Valleytown Fire & Rescue has the capabilities and the certifications,” Wiggins said. “They have assured the county that this will not cause a lack of service.”
With the aforementioned decisions, the county’s property tax rate will remain at the calculated revenue-neutral tax rate of 46 cents per $100 valuation. However, officials caution that some residents may still see an increase in their property tax bill due to an increase in property values after recent revaluations.
“In any given revaluation year there will always be values spread across the county that actually increase or decrease for various reasons,” Wiggins said. “One person could have a tax bill increase, and another could have a tax bill decrease because that neutral rate is not based on any individual property; it’s based on the total taxable valuation of the entire county.”