County Approves $26.8 Million Budget
Fayette County Commissioners approved a $26.8 million budget for the next fiscal year. That amounts to a 6.6 percent increase in spending over the current budget. Commissioners also voted to keep the property tax rate of $0.464 per $100 valuation.
The budget for next year includes a spending deficit of $993,121. Budgeted expenses for next year were set at $26,844,045 with revenues of $258,50,924, leaving a deficit of $933,121.
County Judge Joe Weber said most of the deficit is due to a state law that requires counties to set aside eight percent of their budget each year for healthcare needs of indigent residents. The amounts to about $840,179 in next year’s budget. Weber said the County never actually spends that much on indigent healthcare. In 2019, for example, the County budgeted $609,000 for indigent healthcare but only spent $94,899.81.
County Auditor Cindy Havelka projected the County’s fund balance to stand at about $4.6 million by the end of this year. If the County spends all of the money allocated in next year’s budget, the fund balance would shrink to about $3.6 million at the end of next year.
Next year’s budget includes funding for a three percent cost of living pay raise for County employees. Department heads will have discretion to award those raises based on merit. Another major spending increase came in the budget for the recycling center, which more than doubled from $331,478 this year to $794,054. Most of that is due to changes in the way the County allocated expenses for the recycling center. Previously, some of the recycling center expenses were paid out of the four road and bridge precincts.
The most expensive items in next year’s budget include the Sheriff’s Office ($3.78 million), Fayette County EMS ($3.62 million) and the Justice Center ($1.19 million).
“Our priority is safety and security, and that’s where most of our large expenditures went,” Weber said.
Commissioners voted to keep the property tax rate at $0.464 per $100 value, which has been the same tax rate for the past two years. Due to rising property values and new construction, the County could have lowered the tax rate at $0.4588 and still brought in the same amount of revenue as last year. The County could raise the tax rate up to $0.4809 without triggering a special tax rate election.
“We looked at this very closely and we’re on track to do all the things we want to do while keeping the tax rate at $0.464,” Weber said at the meeting.
Weber contrasted the County budget with that of the Federal government, which he said was set to spend $6.2 trillion this year on a $3 trillion budget.
“I think local government, at this level, may be the last bastion of sanity as far as respecting taxpayer’s dollars, being good stewards, trying not to spend more than we have,” Weber said.
“It’s amazing to me what is going on with the Federal government. We go through this drill – how important is it to us that we don’t spend more than we have and we spend it in the right ways.”