The county commission last week approved the budget for all county departments and a property tax rate of $2.18/hundred assessed valuation, the same as last year. The commission has no control over the school or road departments but must approve their budgets each year.

Each $2.18 collected will be allocated as follows: General Fund, $1.0246; Sanitation, $0.1529; General Purpose School Fund, $0.6625; and General Debt Service, $0.34. Many other sources of revenue coming into the county are allocated by the same proration. Each penny on the tax rate is expected to generate $30,706, assuming 90% collections. There is no property tax money allocated to the Road Department.

The budget for the General Fund amounts to $6,890,789. Local taxes provide $4,120,504, state funds are $1,595,245, Federal funds are $152,585, and other sources provide $1,022,455. The year begins with a Fund Balance of more than $2.2 million.

In addition to property tax, key local taxes include hotel/motel tax, various litigation and court costs and fees, wholesale beer tax, and fees collected by county officials. State funds include allocations for juvenile services, aging programs, litter program, income tax, beer tax, alcoholic beverage tax, TVA, contracted prisoner boarding, registrar’s salary supplement and other grants. Federal money includes Homeland Security grants and other federal funds that come through the state.

Big contracted expenses are $720,000 for ambulance service and nearly $468,000 for sanitation. The largest department costs in the general fund are the Sheriff’s Department, $1.39 million and Corrections, around $1.4 million. The jail is estimated to generate around $1 million in revenue from boarding state prisoners.

Salaries in the General Fund amount to around $2.8 million. There are 131 employee positions in the budget. No raises were included in the budget.

The school’s general purpose budget comes to $17,141, 631. Local taxes provide $3,616,711 of that, with state money making up the bulk of the budget at $13,207,920, and $317,000 in federal money. Local funds include the local sales tax (all of that collected in the county and half that collected in the cities) as well as property tax and proration of some other sources of revenue. State money is based on a formula that takes into account enrollment and a variety of factors designed to provide equity among the counties. Salaries account for $11,349,715 of the school system expenses.

The Debt Service fund, which covers school and general fund bonds, amounts to $2,057,527. Of that, $1,162,138 comes from local taxes, $64,500 from state funds and $830,889 from other sources. The school system provides funds to partially cover school bonds. The Debt Service fund will start with a fund balance of $936,290, which provides cash flow for payments due before property tax money begins coming in.

The Road Department budget totals $2,205,220. There are no local funds; $2,113,220 comes from the state. Salaries account for $684,722 of the budget for an estimated 23 positions.