Most County Commissioners support a proposed budget funded by the first property tax increase in recent years and a bigger increase in the county's fire assessment.
Decent rundown of how the County is trying to deal with their budget this year. It's a fascinating time in County Government.
Here's how I see it:
Three commissioners, who were just elected in November on a platform that I'll summarize as 'the schools and courthouse are crumbling but it ain't our fault, all government is bad, please elect me to the government, I will troll people who weren't born here and I'll never raise taxes' are, as of now, all in full-throated support of the largest county tax increase since 2019 - the year the voters forced them to raise our taxes to fix our schools (which still aren't fixed).
Besides that, all three recently-elected commissioners are also in support of switching from many distinct, community-based fire tax districts (which previously guaranteed money for individual fire departments) to a single, county-wide tax district. This single, county-wide fire tax district is not inherently a bad policy - but the county manager has not offered any sort of parallel governance improvements to determine how fire tax dollars will be distributed in the future. Essentially, county leadership gains all control over fire department budgets. Fire Chiefs around the county are understandably nervous - they've seen how the county has treated other groups that they interact with: the schools, the courts, the city, etc. In most of these cases, government WAS bad - the county government. They delay, bully and intimidate rather than work together to solve problems and help people. You can understand why fire departments might not be too excited to hand over more control to the county.
County commissioners (the people's representatives) have, so far, not inquired as to how additional oversight of these budgets could benefit the public. Fire protection and our fire departments, who largely run on volunteer labor, are deeply connected to the communities they protect. Cedar Mountain, Balsam Grove, Connestee, etc. - these aren't just fire departments, they feed the identities of our individual communities.
If the county manager really wants to move forward with the single fire tax district - open up the budgeting process. Create a citizen-led fire department finance committee. Give seats on this committee (with a vote) to citizens from each of our fire tax districts. Have their meetings in public. Create the fire department budgets in plain view of the citizens. Want more control? Fine - but add more oversight. That's the right way to do it.
Excellent reporting, not available anywhere else.
Please keep up your invaluable work.
Decent rundown of how the County is trying to deal with their budget this year. It's a fascinating time in County Government.
Here's how I see it:
Three commissioners, who were just elected in November on a platform that I'll summarize as 'the schools and courthouse are crumbling but it ain't our fault, all government is bad, please elect me to the government, I will troll people who weren't born here and I'll never raise taxes' are, as of now, all in full-throated support of the largest county tax increase since 2019 - the year the voters forced them to raise our taxes to fix our schools (which still aren't fixed).
Besides that, all three recently-elected commissioners are also in support of switching from many distinct, community-based fire tax districts (which previously guaranteed money for individual fire departments) to a single, county-wide tax district. This single, county-wide fire tax district is not inherently a bad policy - but the county manager has not offered any sort of parallel governance improvements to determine how fire tax dollars will be distributed in the future. Essentially, county leadership gains all control over fire department budgets. Fire Chiefs around the county are understandably nervous - they've seen how the county has treated other groups that they interact with: the schools, the courts, the city, etc. In most of these cases, government WAS bad - the county government. They delay, bully and intimidate rather than work together to solve problems and help people. You can understand why fire departments might not be too excited to hand over more control to the county.
County commissioners (the people's representatives) have, so far, not inquired as to how additional oversight of these budgets could benefit the public. Fire protection and our fire departments, who largely run on volunteer labor, are deeply connected to the communities they protect. Cedar Mountain, Balsam Grove, Connestee, etc. - these aren't just fire departments, they feed the identities of our individual communities.
If the county manager really wants to move forward with the single fire tax district - open up the budgeting process. Create a citizen-led fire department finance committee. Give seats on this committee (with a vote) to citizens from each of our fire tax districts. Have their meetings in public. Create the fire department budgets in plain view of the citizens. Want more control? Fine - but add more oversight. That's the right way to do it.