Laurens County’s new $52 Million budget passed Monday on a split vote and is designed, in the words of the council chairman, to be “taking care of the people who take care of us.”
In the first budget workshop, administration recommended a 2% cost-of-living raise, and by 3rd and final reading, that had increased to a 3% raise, plus money for longevity increases (one every other year of employment) and promotions increases. The budget adds 9 full-time employees and 3 part-time employees; department heads had asked for 24 full-time and 5 part-time additional employees.
In the end, not all department requests were funded; however, the budget does prevent money from being taken from reserves (the deficit reduction fund) to make the budget balance.
“Everybody didn’t get what they asked for, but we were able to fund some of the requests,” said County Administrator Jerre Threatt, working on his first Laurens County budget and with a new finance director ($1.347M in requests by department heads was left unfunded).
The operations budget passed on a 4-2 vote, with Council Vice-Chairman Matthew Brownlee and council member Justin Lane voting “no”; council member Brown Patterson was absent.
The separate fire services budget, at $6.2M and 29.2 additional mils of tax, passed on a 6-0 vote.
No one spoke against either the operations budget or the fire budget.
Taxes will go up to support this budget, to a tax levy of 100.10 mils. Between this year and next year, the budget goes up 7.3%.
That is above the Consumer Price Index (inflation) allowable number, but the County is getting around that by doing a 3-year tax millage rollback.
On a question by county citizen Nancy Garrison, who will take a seat on the county council in January, the council was told it would not need a “super-majority” to adopt this budget.
The budget discussion lasted about 42 minutes of the council’s June 22, 2 hour and 48 minute meeting. The rest of the session consisted of the council’s quarterly hearing-from-speakers-on-any-topic public meeting.
Council Chairman Jeff Carroll said he expects the next council meeting to be livelier.
By then, more taxpayers will have received their every-5-years property re-assessment notices. When it all shakes down from property re-assessment, the county might have to downturn its property tax millage, because state law does not allow a governing body to “reap a windfall” from property re-assessment.
Council was told that Laurens County will have $350 Million in additional taxable property coming on-line next year, mostly through subdivisions. Also, some large industries announced for the county this year will start paying their FILOTs* next year.
Overall, Laurens County is seeing a 5.24% increase in tax millage (while the rate of inflation is 2.63%).
Brownlee and Lane did not explain their “no” votes on the budget, other than to say it should not be considered criticism of the county leadership. Council Member Arthur Lee Philson Jr. spoke in favor of impact fees and cautioned that he will not vote for budgets going forward unless there is a provision for full-time Emergency Medical Service in the Cross Hill community.
He said all the other council members have full-time EMS serving their districts. “Some of you have it in your own back yard,” he said, adding that Prisma Health should not be an ambulance provider in place of Laurens County EMS.
Carroll, who has 3 decades of EMS service, pushed back against that statement, which basically attacks a contract that the County has with Prisma Healthcare.
“I am thanking, personally, Prisma Health for their staffing. The rates are extraordinary for us. It costs a lot of money to provide an ambulance with paramedics 24/7. They are not some kind of boogeyman — don’t make them out to be something they are not. I fully support the county taking full control of its ambulance service, but they (Prisma) provide good service for us,” Carroll said.
Philson also said he wants to see the County move forward on another Capital Projects Sales Tax referendum (the current CPST passed in 2020 sunsets after 8 years), and a new building for the Sheriff’s Office with training facilities should be one of the projects included to be constructed with a 1-cent sales tax.
This is the only mechanism allowed by state law that gives counties the ability to fund large-scale capital projects, and it must be adopted by a majority of county voters.
Carroll said issues like the CPST and ambulance service can be hammered out by the council going forward, and are beyond the scope of Monday night’s budget approval, done at a called meeting. “It was a tough budget year, but everybody had same opportunity to study and ask questions. The budget was as close to regular operating as we could do. The increase is due to adding personnel and cost of living.
“It was simply taking care of the people who take care of us,” Carroll said.
“There is an increase, but the economy is not easy. You know it; you’re being squeezed. … Our taxable revenues went up (this year), but some additional revenue is coming on-line next year.”
