Hart County BOC Approves Spending Resolution for October

Hart County Commissioners have approved a spending resolution to keep the county running as they continue to work on their FY15 budget.

Hart County’s fiscal year begins October 1st.  The county’s FY15 preliminary budget is calling for General Fund revenue of $9.1 million.

As for expenditures, county administrator John Caime is predicting $11.3 million in FY15.

The board has been working for weeks to whittle that number down and it is now around $10.5 million, leaving a $1.4 million difference.

At their meeting last week, commission chair Joey Dorsey said the county is just now getting the tax digest numbers.

“Our fiscal year starts October 1 and we’re just now getting in the tax digest, which we will go over,” Dorsey said. “There also has to be public hearings and the timelines will now allow us to go forward and adopt that (budget) at this point in time. Therefore, we have to approve a spending resolution to keep the county government going.”

Caime told the board there are still issues with the budget and the tax digest that have to be resolved.

“We’ve been working real hard for six months now trying to bring things in line with the revenues that are projected and we still have a ways to go,” he said. “So this spending resolution will carry us through October. If we don’t get done in time, we’ll have to have another spending resolution to carry us through November.”

In his draft budget proposal, Caime said four years of tax assessments and delayed tax digests cost the county some $2-million dollars, which came out of taxpayer money and was paid for soley by the county.

Additional expenses for FY15, Caime said, will include the addition of a fourth EMS crew, which will be done over two fiscal years, new EMS equipment, and new vehicles in the Sheriff’s department.