Millage Must be Raised in FY16 Says Franklin County Manager

Franklin County’s cash reserves are almost depleted and to get those reserves built back up, the County must raise the millage in Fiscal 2016.

That was the conclusion of Franklin County Manager Beth Thomas during her FY16 Budget presentation Monday night to the Board of Commissioners.

Thomas said, while the County is seeing some growth in some areas, overall it is still in a recession.

“We are on the verge of being something great,” Thomas told the board. “Yet we have incurred an economic recession. We have had to dip into our reserve multiple times to cover things that have been out of our control.”

Thomas began her presentation by noting the County’s current millage rate of 8.140 mills is lower than it was in 1999.

Additionally, she said property tax revenues have only increased by $165-thousand dollars over the past five years, not enough to keep up with the rising cost of goods and services.

Another problem, Local Option Sales Taxes have not been as high as anticipated for several years.

Thomas said the County’s General Fund has been running a deficit for the past five years forcing the County to dip into its cash reserves year after year until now there is almost nothing left to fall back on.

“In the last five years, we have not made enough money to cover our expenditures,” she said. “These deficits range anywhere from $152,000 to $1.1 million. So just like with your home, when you don’t have enough money to cover expenditures, you have to dive into your savings account. And that’s exactly what the County has done.”

Thomas outlined a FY16 General Fund budget of $13,253,100 – up from this fiscal year’s budget of $11,832,230 million.

Some of the big increases coming up for the County in FY16 include the hospital bond debt, the Sheriff’s Department budget, inflation, and an increase in employee health insurance costs.

Thomas said the County has also been asked to set aside about $300-thousand for a capital murder trial set for later this year in Franklin County.

Total increase in expenses comes to just over a million dollars next fiscal year according to Thomas.  Thomas said she sees no other way than to raise the millage to 11.13 mills.

“So I am looking at a weighted increase of 2.67 mills,” Thomas concluded. “That is a weighted increase  between the incorporated and unincorporated groups because they have historically been at different rates. One of those groups will get hit higher than the other group. One will be at 2.99  and one will be at 1.83. Over 60% of that increase due to sustained cost overruns. .26 mills is due to the reduction in sales tax and .22 mills is due to a reduction in the digest.”

The County has scheduled four townhall meetings and two public hearings.

The first two townhall meetings are set for June 16th at 10a and 7p. The second set of townhall meetings will be held on June 18 at 10a and 7p.

Additionally, two public hearings will be held on June 23 at 6p and again on June 30 at 6p during the Commission work session.

Commission is expected to adopt the FY16 budget on the 30th after the public hearing.  The County’s fiscal year begins July 1. 

Once the budget has been adopted, public hearings will be scheduled regarding the proposed millage increase.