Johnston County
Board
of Commissioners report from June 17 session |
 |
Commissioners present: Chairman
Ted Godwin, Tony Braswell, Jeff Carver,
Patrick Harris, Butch Lawter, Chad Stewart,
Larry Wood
Absent: None
2019-20 county budget
adopted
with some additional appropriations
| THE
BUDGET AT A GLANCE Total General Fund: $243 million (up 6.6%) Property-tax rate: 76 cents per $100 valuation; or 0.76% of total value Property-tax revenue: $146.2 million Sales-tax revenue: $45.5 million Public Schools appropriation: $69,042,842 (28% of General Fund) New positions (General Fund): Emergency Medical Services.....8 Dept. of Social Services.............7 Sheriff's Department ..................7 • One new position in each of five agencies: Child Support, Register of Deeds, Planning, Animal Services, Veterans Service Office • A newly created position of Parks, Greenways, and Open Space Coordinator Pay increases for county employees: 2.1% in July; "potential" performance adjustments of 1.4% in October |
Commissioner Larry Wood made the motion to adopt after reading a list of changes to County Manager Rick Hester's proposed budget. It was Mr. Wood's task this time around to work out the final numbers after negotiations behind the scenes with agencies seeking funds beyond the manager's recommendations.
Commissioners' Chairman Ted Godwin said assigning one board member to handle those negotiations has been standard procedure in recent years.
The biggest change in the final budget was $3 million added to the county manager's recommendation for a $2.5-million increase in funding for Johnston County Public Schools. That raises the total to about $69 million in 2019-20.
Since the school board's proposed budget sought a $20.5-million increase, school leaders will have to figure out what to cut in days ahead. Superintendent of Schools Ross Renfrow said the Board of Education will likely adopt its revised budget at its next meeting August 13 (the school board doesn't meet in July).
Other appropriations added to the final county budget on Monday:
• $133,745 on top of the county manager's recommendation of $566,255 for capital improvements at Johnston Community College.
• $95,000 added to $242,395 that had been recommended for Community and Senior Services of Johnston County.
• $5,000 to ReEntry, a Smithfield-based non-profit service focused on prevention of domestic violence (this is a new addition to the county's list of "special appropriations" for various independent agencies).
• $175,000 for the Johnston County Airport to match federal grants.
• $76,000 for Johnston County's participation in a regional commuter-rail study.
• $35,000 for the proposed Archer Lodge Veterans Memorial.
• Up to $33,000 to Johnston's Soil & Water Conservation District for a new truck.
• $10,000 for Johnston County Special Olympics.
• $85,000 to help the Town of Kenly pay for demolition of the abandoned Kenly School cafeteria and auditorium building.
• $100,000 for the proposed Clayton Harmony Playground.
• $25,000 for the Johnston County Partnership for Children.
• $10,000 added to cover an increase from $5,500 to $6,000 in the base fee the county pays to "first responder" fire departments each year.
• $21,000 for the Smithfield Rescue Mission.
To offset those additional appropriations while cutting the property-tax rate from 78 to 76 cents, $800,000 was added to projected sales-tax revenues and $2.3 million was pulled from the General Fund's capital-outlay budget, which the county manager had recommended raising from $400,000 this past year to almost $5.9 million in the year ahead. (Mr. Hester said most of the new year's increase in capital outlay is related to pending projects to construct a new detention center in place of the current Courthouse jail plus subsequent renovations to the Courthouse to expand judicial operations --- projects that will be funded over the next several budget years rather than all at once.)
Besides those offsetting adjustments, the final budget takes $4.1 million from the county's reserve funds (Mr. Hester's proposal had no money budgeted from General Fund balance). All of the $4.1 million may not be needed if revenues exceed expectations and expenses come in less than anticipated in 2019-20.
WHAT CUTTING THE TAX RATE WILL DO
In approving the new budget with a cut in the property-tax rate from 78 cents to 76 cents per $100 valuation, commissioners reduced projected revenue from that source by $3.4 million. Even so, the revised rate is expected to increase county property-tax revenues by almost $15 million in 2019-20 as a result of real-estate revaluation: from $131,353,762 this past year to $146,181,000 in the year ahead.
Mr. Hester estimates a county tax rate of 70.5 cents would have been "revenue neutral" in the wake of across-the-board property revaluations.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The final budget won't be posted on the county's website before July 8, the date of the commissioners' next scheduled meeting. In the meantime, you can still access the county manager's proposed budget, most of which was unaffected by the changes approved this week. Here's the link>