Jake Browning
reporter@thefranklinpress.com
County manager Derek Roland addressed the Macon County Board of Commissioners and gave county residents their first look at the next fiscal year during a meeting of the board on May 25.
The total value of the not yet finalized budget is $54,641,096, about a 4.5% increase compared to a $52,302,445 value for the current fiscal year’s budget. The original proposed budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year was reduced by about $1,000,000 during the early days of the pandemic because of fears that revenue would be severely reduced by coronavirus-related restrictions. However, the county’s revenues were much better than expected. Sales tax revenue in particular was surprisingly high and Roland expects it to grow further in 2021-22 by $2,462,105.
“About one year ago this month, we sat in this room and discussed sales tax and ironically, it was going to be the revenue source that we thought took the greatest hit,” Roland said. “We budgeted sales tax in the [updated] budget at $500,000 less than the fiscal year ’20 original budget, but moving forward, as the economy has rebounded, we have budgeted sales tax here and it is going to account for the primary source of your revenue growth.”
As in years past, the bulk of general fund expenditures are dedicated to public safety, human services and education, which collectively make up $38,189,647 and 70% of the budget. The public safety budget includes $102,500 for new EMS equipment, $205,797 for a new ambulance, $140,080 for four new patrol vehicles and $157,500 worth of detention center capital improvements. The biggest increase to human services funding is $242,646 in mid-year COVID-19 grant funding that didn’t show up in this year’s budget projections, although $68,000 will also be spent on two new vehicles. The education budget, presently set at $10,311,908, will likely be the most volatile going forward because of lingering questions about how much state funding to expect. One high profile decision will be whether to provide more money for arts education like advocates with Arts for MCS have been requesting for a year and a half now.
“We believe that Macon County can be top of the line on many respects, but not without the creativity, the resourcefulness, the confidence, the peace and the joy that these programs provide our children,” organizer Maggie Koon Jennings told the commissioners at a recent public comment period. “We believe that they are essential to Macon County being top of the line and essential to our children.”
This budget can and will change over the next several weeks. The public will have an opportunity to address the commissioners about any concerns they have in a later meeting, while the commissioners are setting up separate meetings to speak with entities whose budgets have the most at stake, such as local fire departments. For now, however, the commissioners are confident in the findings of the proposed budget and look forward to a more stable fiscal year than the COVID-19-ridden year that they just experienced.
“I believe every year [Roland] is getting better at this,” board chairman Jim Tate said. “The way [his] mind rolls through these numbers and keeps up with everything is very impressive.”
A public hearing on the county’s proposed budget is set for the commissioners’ next monthly meeting on Tuesday, June 8 at 6 p.m. in the boardroom at the Macon County Courthouse.