County commissioners are determined to cut the local tax rate in spite of inflation that has hiked costs across the board.
And it looks like they’ll get there — barely, and not without some pain.
Commissioners met for more than 5½ hours Tuesday, most of that time spent going through the budget line-by-line. Their budget work isn’t yet done; they’ll continue those efforts in the coming weeks before they schedule a public hearing to finalize the budget.
But their rough draft calls for a tax rate of about 61.4 mills, down very slightly from last year’s rate of 61.5, thanks mostly to a $10 million increase to the county’s total property value.
“It’s humbling,” Commissioner David Lee said.
“I walked out of that meeting with my head down, wondering if we made the right choices. Did we cut taxes just to say we cut taxes?”
And that’s coming from Lee, one of more fiscally conservative members of the three commissioners. He’s the commissioner most likely to want to wait on decisions so he can do more research and study the numbers.
The goal was to minimize the pain for county residents, who are being squeezed from all sides by increased costs, Chairman Jerry Daniels said.
The cost of food is going up. The cost of fuel is up. Insurance rates are higher. Housing costs more. Just about everything is more expensive, and the U.S. inflation rate of around 9% is the highest it has been since the 1980s.
“I’m not going to agree with raising taxes on anybody, especially in this economy,” Daniels said.
Commissioner Bruce Symes said difficult decisions had to be made.
“When I approach the budget process, I keep in mind our responsibility to the taxpayers but also doing the best we can to meet the needs of the county,” he said.
“Budget time is the toughest thing I do every year as a commissioner, the pandemic notwithstanding. It’s about weighing all those responsibilities: meeting our statutory obligations, respecting the taxpayers, treating our employees fairly and getting done what needs to be done.
“We really did have a goal to keep the mill levy static. I think we started with about $6 million in requests above what that number would be, even with an increase in our valuation.”
Commissioners whittled down the budget, bit by bit. They’ll be back at it on Tuesday morning.
Daniels noted: “There’s a middle ground, and I think we’ve found it.”
