While the DeKalb County Commission has approved a measure to move forward with a proposed judicial center, and the general design of the facility has been accepted, exactly how to fund the project is seemingly up in the air. The County’s Budget Committee has twice failed to move forward with the process of a bond resolution, which will now include the purchase of a new fire truck and two new ambulances.
During a May 14 meeting of the Budget Committee, the motion to adopt a bond resolution, not to exceed $65 million, once again failed on a four to two vote.
Beforehand, the committee voted unanimously to include a total of $910,000, $425,000 for a new fire truck and a total of $485,000 for two new ambulances, in the bond resolution to be funded from any excess proceeds or interest income from the bonds. The move was made to keep from spending the county’s capital projects fund in 2024-25.
According to the county’s Financial Advisor Steve Bates, if all the capital projects funding requests were left in the budget for 2024-25, the fund would be going into reserves by $1,087,873, and Bates suggested that the fire truck and ambulances be included in the bond resolution along with construction of the judicial center. That would remove a total of $910,000 in spending from the capital projects fund, along with cuts of $184,890 for EMS sleeping quarters at the new Liberty Fire Hall. Capital projects expenditures would be $1,518,158 with revenues exceeding spending by $7,017 for the year, and a projected fund balance of $1,660,974 by June 30, 2025.
“I think we will earn enough interest income, and to the extent you have some monies left over you might be able to pick up these costs without taking this into cash. You would leave the project description in the bond resolution broad enough to capture anything you would have had to deplete your cash for just as a back-up. If there should not be enough money left over, we could always come back and amend the budget and put it back into capital projects,” said Bates.
The Budget Committee did approve some other capital projects funding, including another $100,000 in seed money for a new public safety building to house a fire truck in the Wolf Creek community. Including funds already set aside for the project in past years, that fund would total $250,000.
The committee approved $640,000 for 75 new county fire department portable radios under the new Tennessee Advanced Communications Network (TACN) system, as a safeguard should funding through the FEMA Assistance to Firefighter Grant not be approved. A request for radios for the Smithville/DeKalb Rescue Squad is still under consideration after some updated numbers from the squad.
Funding for four new sheriff’s department patrol cars totaling $165,000, was approved as well as $9,964 for the cost of purchasing and installing a new mobile radio for an ambulance being bid out this year. The committee also approved $67,142 local grant match for an ambulance funded by a Community Development Block Grant.
The committee will need to revisit the bond resolution issue in order for the county to set the property tax rate and look at a possible wheel tax.
