County starting to draft 2017 budget

Published 12:03 am Friday, September 9, 2016

The 2.5-mill property tax increase passed by the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners in August is expected to raise some $6.25 million a year. That’s more than enough to wipe out the $2.9 million deficit that was built into the $41.5 million 2016 budget.

But will it be enough to keep the county from running red ink in 2017?

That’s the question commissioners are facing as they start to put together next year’s budget.

“We already know there are things we are going to have to include in the 2017 budget that were not in this year’s budget,” said board Chairman Mike Babb.

For several years, the county’s pension plan has been funded at more than 100 percent, allowing commissioners not to have to include more funding for the pension in the budget. That’s going to change next year. If commissioners want to keep the pension from dropping below 100 percent, which is official county policy, they will have to put money in. Babb says based on the latest forecasts, they’ll have to put $1.1 million into the pension plan.

And then there’s the 911 Center. That has been funded by a $1.50 monthly fee that customers pay on their phone bills. But the revenue generated by that fee has been dropping, not just in Whitfield County but across the state, as people drop their landlines and use only cellphones.

The county estimates it will have to put $600,000 in general fund revenue into the 911 Center to cover its costs.

Babb says the administration has already begun preliminary work on the 2017 budget. He says County Finance Director Alicia Vaughn has already sent notes to department heads and constitutional officers to prepare their budget requests.

“I think she still has to set up the appointment times,” he said. “Alicia will probably meet with the department heads and maybe the constitutional officers for the first go around. Then there will be a second go around that will have input from the commissioners and which will be open to the news media.”

Last year, for the first time, those meetings were opened up to commissioners who wanted to attend as well as the media.

Commissioner Lynn Laughter, who is the presumptive incoming board chairman, sat in on almost all of the meetings last year, and she says she plans to sit in on all of the meetings this year.

“I want to hear firsthand what the department heads say they need, to ask the questions and talk to them about their budgets,” she said.

Laughter said she found doing that last year helped her get a better feel for the budget process.

“To hear them talk about what they needed and to be able to ask them to prioritize their needs was very beneficial,” she said. “We were able to talk about tradeoffs — if you can’t get this, would something else work — for instance.”

Commissioner Barry Robbins also sat in on many of the meetings with department heads last year, and he says he plans on attending as many of those meetings this year as he can.

“Last year was the first year that I was involved in the budget process,” said Robbins, who was elected in 2014. “So I really appreciated the chance to sit in and ask questions. This year I’m looking forward to seeing what the department heads and constitutional officers present in terms of spending requests and spending cuts.”