Published: August 02, 2008 06:34 pm      

Commissioners to consider proposed budget for the coming fiscal year

By Kelly Young

kyoung@jacksonvilleprogress.com

Cherokee County Auditor L.H. Crockett filed a proposed budget with the county clerk’s office, Wednesday, which the county commissioners will consider adopting during a special meeting Monday morning at the Rusk courthouse. The $20 million budget submitted by Crockett would include a 50-percent fuel increase for the sheriff’s department and all four precincts, a 5-percent raise for all county employees and three major construction projects, if accepted.

Despite these increases and large-ticket projects, Crockett also expects the county to be able to drop its tax rate by three cents — from 61 cents per $100 of valuation to 58 cents.

“Cherokee County is currently in sound financial shape. Several unanticipated events happened a few years ago that made things better for us from a cash position, and we are hoping to be able to give some relief back to the taxpayers this year,” Crockett said. “Other county auditors that I have spoken with say the county should maintain a three-month reserve — enough money to operate your budget for three months. Well, our reserve exceeds that three month figure, so we are going to give some back this year, and we hope to be able to do it again next year.”

If the tax rate is lowered as proposed, it will be the lowest rate in Cherokee County since Fiscal Year 2002-2003. The budget the commissioners will review on Monday is for $20,192,916, up nearly one million dollars from the current year’s budget of $19,228,634.

Crockett said a number of factors have combined to allow the county to increase the budget while decreasing the tax rate. Among those factors, he listed a much more favorable interest rate than expected, increased appraisal valuations, several planned projects that didn’t occur last year and a lack of large budget requests from the county’s department heads.

“Revenues came in much greater than anticipated and expenditures were much less, so our surplus jumped by a lot. Concerning the interest rate, most of our money had been in a local bank earning around one-and-a-half percent, when a government investment company named TexSTAR offered us rates of over 5 percent if we moved our money down to them,” he said. “The bank then decided to match that offer, so while I had budgeted at 2 percent or less, we were suddenly making more than 5 percent for almost the whole year — resulting in us making several hundred thousand more than expected.”

He also said the number of delinquent taxpayers was far lower than expected last year, resulting in tax collections being considerably higher than usual.

The commissioners recently decided to move forward with three construction projects the county has been considering — the renovation of the old police department building in Jacksonville, the construction of a new evidence room at the jail in Rusk and the conversion of the drive-through at the justice of the peace’s office in Alto into a courtroom. But with this fiscal year less than two months from ending, Crockett said the costs of those projects will have to be moved onto next year’s budget.

“We had about $600,000 in this year’s budget for construction projects that didn’t get used, so I’m transferring that money to next year and I’m adding several hundred thousand more so we have enough money to complete all the projects,” Crockett said. ‘There are no major new construction projects planned for next year.”

One cause for concern by the county during the budgeting process has been trying to determine how much to set aside for gasoline next year, due to the unpredictable nature of current gas prices. After consulting with other counties, it was decided to increase the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department’s fuel budget by 50 percent.

The road and bridge crews for each of the county’s four precincts will be receiving an extra $270,000 next year, for use primarily to purchase fuel and road materials.

“A budget is nothing but a guess. Who knows what the price of gas will do in the next year? We are just hoping that a 50 percent increase will be enough, because the precincts and the sheriff’s department burn through a lot of gas,” Crockett said.

The commissioner’s court will meet Monday at 10 a.m. Even if the proposed budget is accepted by the commissioners, two separate public hearings will still need to be held in the coming months before the tax rate can be set.

“We are trying to do what we can to help the taxpayer. It’s not a lot, but every little bit helps when you are in an economic situation like we have now. We were able to lower the tax rate last year, it looks like we can lower it this year and I hope we can do it again next year,” he said. “We may not be able to do it by three cents next year, but we’ll do anything we can do to help.”