SNOW HILL — Greene County commissioners passed its 2013-2014 budget last week with a 3-cent property tax increase.
The tax increase is anticipated to rebuild the fund balance by $250,000.
Three commissioners voted to pass the tax increase, while Commissioner Jerry Jones and Chairman Jack Edmundson voted against it.
Although the budget will not be ready to publish until possibly Wednesday, it is expected to be balanced with the tax increase, Interim County Manager Richard Hicks said.
Hicks said budget that ended in June should “break even” without a fund balance shortage after he figures in the amendments he presented to the board at its Friday morning workshop.
Because of a change in the law regarding when motor vehicle taxes will be collected, the county will see an increase of about $400,000 of revenue in the new budget. But in the following year, 2014-2015, the county will no longer have that revenue — leaving a $400,000 shortage.
There was much discussion about the tax increase, a measure that hasn’t happened in five years.
Commissioner Bennie Heath listed actions the county has recently taken, such as not raising employee salaries and stopping payment on 401K plans, except what is state-mandated for law enforcement. He also mentioned imposing furloughs, including six days in the new fiscal year amounting to a 2.3 percent decrease to employees.
“We’re sitting here doing the same thing we’ve done for the last several years, and say we’re not going to have a tax increase,” he said, “and that’s part of the reason why we are where we are.”
He continued, “What I’m going to say is not going to be popular for some people. But in five years, you’re talking about five years with no tax increase and three cents is like six-tenths of a cent per year average, if you look at it from that perspective.”
Heath said the budget shortfall, once at around $1 million, was dropped to about $300,000. That amount created a need to impose a 3-cent tax increase, he said.
“And unless somebody can tell me a reasonable way to get there without having a 3-cent tax increase,” Heath said, “I’m going to make a motion to adopt this budget with a 3-cents tax increase.”
Commissioner Denny Garner seconded the motion.
Chairman Jack Edmundson said the citizens are already faced with a fire tax increase (in Bullhead, Castoria and Hookerton) and higher gas, food and utility costs.
“It’s going to hurt the senior citizens of this county,” he said. “It’s hurting the employees of this county. It’s money that’s got to come out of their pockets, too.”
Edmundson expressed concern over the increase from .756 to .786 cents per $100 of property value
“We’re way beyond these other surrounding counties,” he said. “Nobody’s going to move in here, no chance.”
Edmundson blamed the county’s lack of oversight, and said other counties have recommended Greene eliminate some positions.
“We haven’t gone by what the manager has suggested,” he said. “We haven’t gone by what the Local Government Commission has suggested. We haven’t gone by what the personnel committee selected suggested to do.”
He listed a few areas where the county could have saved money, such as about $325,000 paid to Ralph Hodge Construction for the alternative water project for the time the company had gone past the project deadline.
He also mentioned allowing the ABC Board to keep $12,000 of money it hadn’t spent so they could use it for upgrades. There was also the possibility of withholding additional money over the $15,000 the county deducted from the Lenoir Community College fund.
“We can pull $100,000 out of LCC and then see what they do,” Edmundson said, following a discussion about whether the county needs to fund the college. “We’re in a tough fix. If they can’t play with us, then let them go somewhere else. They ain’t going nowhere. Pitt Community College can come over here.”
Another $200,000 was possibly lost because the board didn’t insist that the former county manager, Don Davenport, meet with the town of Snow Hill when it requested a meeting before creating its own police department.
“And then, last week, we lost $15,300 because the fire department — the politics got involved — had to have that $15,000. We couldn’t cut them. We cut the citizens of this county, but we ain’t cut them. The ones that were on that board, or that committee, none of them raised their fire tax.”
Heath said Hookerton raised its fire tax.
The discussion turned to economic development.
Edmundson said Sanderson Farms was interested in Greene, but he didn’t believe they would come back after the tax increase.
Robert “Bob” Masters, a grant writer and owner of Carolina Opportunities, said he moved to Greene because he wanted to live in a rural area.
“The more rural we are, the higher our taxes are going to be,” he said. “That is a reality that we can’t not run from, anymore.”
Masters said there is not enough of a tax base in a rural county to keep the taxes down.
“There’s no one thing that affects an industry coming to your county,” he said, “— not the tax rate, not the giveaways and all that stuff. It’s a combination of things.”
Kinston has grown even during the recession and is “poised to do more,” he said.
“And we better think about doing that, too,” Masters said. “I mean, it’s really no end in sight for this problem because, again, as long as we just keep this rural mindset, this total rural mindset, we’ve just got to have it in mind it’s going to get expensive to live here.”
Susan Blizzard of Hookerton said, “I have no problem with a tax increase, if the hole in the budget is gone.”
Jones said he knows the county needs the tax increase, but more needs to be considered.
“The only thing I want to say,” he said, “going forward, we need to be looking for ways to start cutting back.”
Jody Tyson said the financial problems will not be settled quickly.
“No one has set here and said we want to cut the throat of our county,” he said, “but we have said we want to see financial and fiducial accountability and responsibility for every 100 pennies of every single taxpayer’s dollars.”
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.