‘Our Appetite Cannot be Bigger than the Belt that Holds Our Stomach’

Facing a $3.45 Million Budget Deficit, County Has Some Hard Decisions to Make

Fayette County Commissioners continued chipping away at next year’s budget during a pair of meetings this week. After meeting on Monday, they still faced a $3.45 million deficit.

At the meeting on Monday, Commissioners finished considering most spending requests from departments. As it stood at the end of that meeting, overall expenses totaled $28,106,316.38 with projected revenue of $24,656,298.

Commissioners met again on Wednesday, July 28, in which they discussed revenue projections for next year. County Auditor Cindy Havelka said her office had over-calculated employee retirement costs among other expenses. Overall expenses would fall below the $28.1 million mark, she said, but she did not have the exact figure calculated as of Wednesday.

Weber said he does not intend to propose a tax rate increase next year. The County property tax rate has stood at $0.464 per $100 of property value since 2019.

“Our appetite cannot be bigger than the belt that holds our stomach,” County Judge Joe Weber told the other Commissioners on Wednesday.

Chief Appraiser Richard Moring of the Fayette County Appraisal District certified taxable property values across the County at $3,533,684,487. Based on that number, the Fayette County Auditor’s Office calculated estimate property tax revenue of $16,005,127 at the current tax. (The total tax revenue number includes $10,495,043 for the County’s general fund plus $5,510,084 for the road and bridge departments.)

According to the proposed budget, property taxes would provide about 65 percent of the County’s total revenue next year. The rest would come from other sources including sales tax, fines and fees, charges for service, reimbursements from the state and federal governments, rents and interest.

Economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic affected County finances in a number of ways. For example in 2020, the County budgeted $995,000 in revenue from fines and fees, but it only collected $618,272.84 due to law enforcement writing fewer tickets.

Accordingly, Pct. 1 Commissioner Jason McBroom said the County was trying to base revenue projections for next year on numbers from 2019.

“I think our revenue is going to be much higher,” said Weber after the meeting on Monday.

At the meeting Wednesday, Pct. 3 Commissioner Harvey Berckenhoff raised concerns about a resurgence of the coronavirus that could lead to another economic downturn, especially in regard to sales tax collections for the County.

“I don’t think we can base this budget on this COVID stuff and that the world is going to come crashing to an end,” Weber said.