County Begins Budget Review

The Jasper County Commissioners met for their first budget work session Monday evening, and County Manager Mike Benton reviewed the current tax digest and revenues, then took a quick cursory look at department heads budget requests.

After an hour and a half, the commissioners went into closed session, at the request of the County Manager.

Mr. Benton began his presentation by saying the finance department had spent a lot of time with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials for the last several weeks.

He said there is more work to be done, and commissioners sometimes guide that work.

However, he assured commissioners the county will get a hefty check from the feds for tornado relief.

Mr. Benton reviewed the digest numbers, saying it had grown by $114,000,000. Of that, $64 million is inflationary growth, which means that’s how much previous values increased because of real estate sales. The real growth is $46,930,986. Mr. Benton explained that means that the rollback rate for taxes (to not increase taxes) would be 11.103 mills. The current millage rate is 12.159.

Then, Mr. Benton reviewed revenues, saying there are about 75 revenue items, with the bulk of the revenue items being ad valorem taxes. He also said the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) keeps increasing, and is up considerably this year. Likewise, the Title Ad Valorem Tax (TAVT) which is charged for vehicles continues to rise.

In a brief review of the expenditure requests, several departments are asking for significant increases including Magistrate, Sheriff, Fire/Rescue, and several others. Some have already brought requests to the commissioners for items such as new software, new vehicles, copier leases, etc., but some are new in the budget requests.

The commissioners are scheduled to meet Friday, May 5, and Monday, May 15, as well as having their regular meeting next Monday, May 1. Other budget work sessions are also scheduled.