Second Hearing on Franklin County FY2024 Budget Set For Tonight

Franklin County Commissioners will hold another public hearing tonight on the proposed FY2024 budget.

This is the second of three public hearings before they are expected to vote to pass the budget at their regular meeting June 5.

County Manager Derrick Turner presented the proposed budget in a PowerPoint presentation at their meeting in May.

Turner said the County needs to think not just in terms of the next fiscal year but needs to adopt more of a longer perspective.

Turner said the next budget anticipates revenues totaling $27,372,160 with expenditures of $27,342,750.

That’s just over $2-million from the actual revenues in FY23 of $25,371,721. 

That breaks down to General Fund- $18,788,990.00, E911 Fund:  $987,800.00, Probation Fund:  $716,950.00, SPLOST Fund:  $4,270,000.00, Water Fund:  $2,463,800.00, and Landfill Fund: $115,210.00

Part of the increase for the next fiscal year according to Turner is a cost of living increase for County employees and the requests from County staff and the Sheriff’s department for additional employees. 

Turner said the Board recommended a salary increase of between 3 and 5%, which is lower than this year’s COLA of 7% but he said it’s up to the Board to decide.

“The 5% is currently included in the budget. So, the Board will have to make a decision to lower COLA or stay at 5% or if you want to do a higher COLA and that would be a change in the budget,” he explained.

Turner also exhorted the Commissioners to take into consideration the County’s five-year Capital Improvement Plan.

“These are all those major expenditures over $5,000 that you’ll be looking at. Typically you want to look at that from a five-year perspective,” he said. “Even with this year, we want to look at any minor adjustments coming into the FY24 budget as well as the outward years to the FY28 budget. So we want to really look at it for the whole five years.”

Turner recommended the County allocate just over $1.5 million toward capital improvement projects for fiscal 2024.

Requests for new personnel include hiring two new Sheriff’s deputies, another assistant County Marshal and more pubic works staff. 

After hearing from Turner, Jacques thanked him and called the presentation of the proposed budget very thorough.

Jacques said the goal of the Board is to keep from having to raises taxes.

“I want this budget to factor in anything we as a Board can do for our county employees as well ensure there will be no tax increase within the budget for our citizens. I think you’ve done a very good job of blending both into this initial budget and capital outlay,” he said.

A copy of the proposed budget may be viewed on the Franklin County Government web site. 

By law, the County must pass the FY24 budget by June 30. 

The new budget will go into effect July 1.