A proposed tax increase was approved by Brown County Commissioners in a special called meeting of the court on Friday afternoon. The proposed increase was said to be based on the increased cost of doing the county’s business, simply to fund the budget needed for the coming fiscal year, according to County Judge Ray West.
An increased total tax rate of 0.5350/$100 valuation was proposed by commissioners. The total proposed tax rate includes 0.4239 general fund, 0.0347 debt service, and 0.0764 road and flood tax rates. Brown County Judge Ray West stated that the increase was necessary, not adding anything of significance to the budget, simply necessities to run the county’s business.
West said that this would mean the average homeowner in Brown County would pay approximately $24 more per year in property taxes. He explained that the average home in Brown County was $76,456 last year; at the 2011 tax rate of 0.5169/$100 valuation, the property taxes equaled $395.20. The current value of the average home in Brown County has increased slightly to $78,393, which at the new proposed tax rate of 0.5350 would increase the taxes due by $24/year. This tax amount applies to only the county portion of property tax.
“In the past several years, we always strive to minimize the tax so as to help our taxpayers, and we have successfully done so in years past. I don’t know that I can characterize it as years past catching up with us,” said West. “But I will say that we are not adding any kind of significant cost, we are not adding any kind of significant service, it’s simply that the service costs more and in order to fund the proposed budget, which is again almost a carbon copy of last year as far as services are concerned. It is going to cost us a half million dollars more to fund it, it’s just that simple. I don’t know any other way to explain.”
West explained that the budget is “a guess” based on revenue received in 2011 and the actual expenses through the first 10 months of the current fiscal year. Based on this, an increase of $459,574 was necessary to fund the proposed approximately $10 million budget of FY 2012-2013.
Brown County Commissioners Joel Kelton was the only commissioner to vote against the proposed tax rate. One item, which caused Kelton to vote against the proposed tax increase, was the 2% that would be given to non-elected county employees for raises. This increase would cost the county approximately $72,000, and Kelton explained that he felt it was not justified in a year with such a tight budget.
“We’ve been discussing this at length, trying to get a lean budget as we can get,” said Kelton. “We could balance the budget with a tax rate and not give raises, but this proposed budget includes raises and I’m not comfortable increasing the tax rate just to give raises.”
West explained that the 2% pay raise for non-elected county employees is needed because it is more expensive to run a household this year than it was in 2011. He stated that the 2% raise was much less than the increase in the cost of living increase figured by the federal government of 2011-2012. Simply put – money doesn’t go as far as it did in 2011, West said.
“If anyone raises an objection to a 2% raise in salaries for non-elected employees, they simply don’t understand that it costs more for a household to operate, much more than 2%,” said West. “The people who work for the county are not highly paid and a 2% raise is a minimal raise. There was a time during this budget process I feared that we would not be able to give them a raise at all.”
West summarized that the proposed increase in the total budget of $459,574 is 5% of the $10 million budget that the county has to fund, due to the cost of running the county’s business. He also explained that he has believed back to the time he first became a county judge, that “the county’s finances should be a function of business, separate from politics and that the cost of doing business goes up every year.”
The county will hold two public hearings on the tax rate and budget before final approval. The first public hearing will be held on September 17, 2012 at 9:00 AM at the Brown County Commissioner’s Courtroom with the second public hearing to be held on September 20, 2012 at 9:00 AM.
