In between yelling, finger pointing, and some name calling, the DeKalb County Commission managed to adopt the tax rate and consolidated budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year at their last meeting on Monday, July 25. The county property tax rate will remain unchanged at $1.7308 per $100 of assessed value.
This year’s budget includes pay raises for county employees, along with teachers and school support staff, and funding for bonuses and various projects from the county’s $3.98 million share of federal American Rescue Plan Act funding. It was the County’s ARP funding that seemed to be a sticking point for some commissioners.
Commissioner Jerry Adcock questioned warrant commissioners getting another $1,000 raise, the DeKalb Animal Coalition getting another $40,000 donation from the county, and the ARP funds being in an appropriations resolution, or a total of all funds. Commissioner Bruce Malone said during the meeting that he knew for a fact that the county had not received its second payment from the American Rescue Plan.
The county received authorization to draw down $1.9 million of the total $3.98 million ARP funding last summer for the 2021-22 fiscal year and the rest was expected to be drawn down later this fiscal year (2022-23). Some commissioners voiced concerns over adding funds to the budget that the county had not received yet, but County Mayor Tim Stribling explained that that is the way the budget always works, with all property taxes and sales taxes not collected until later in the year. Currently the commission has obligated over $2.4 million in ARP funding, but has only spent $272,799 as of June 30, 2022.
Commissioner Jerry Adcock said that he thought the ARP funds would be better served by distributing them to the citizens of the county rather than giving bonuses.
The commission voted to approve the appropriations resolution with Commissioners Julie Young, Bruce Malone, and Jerry Adcock voting “No.”
The budget was voted on as a consolidated budget, voting on the budget as a whole rather than line by line, but Commissioner Bruce Malone made a motion to send the budget back to the Budget Committee due to the ARP funding and that there were no minutes provided from the Budget Committee’s meetings. Jerry Adcock seconded the motion, but it failed with only Adcock and Malone voting in favor.
Commissioner Matt Adcock then made a motion to consolidate the budget and approve it as a whole. Commissioner Sabrina Farler offered a second and the motion passed with Shae Flatt, Julie Young, Susannah Cripps Daughtry, Bruce Malone, and Jerry Adcock voting “No.”
Later, Bruce Malone made a motion that the county not pay any ARP projects until all the money had been deposited to the county, even though the county had a fund balance of $1.7 million. Jerry Adcock offered a second to the motion.
Commissioner Young said during the meeting that she had reached out to a lawyer about the ARP funds, and Ben Rogers at CTAS, and stated that Rogers said, “I would recommend not spending the money for those expenditures until the money has been deposited by the Treasury into the county’s bank account. I would never spend money I do not have.”
Commissioners Beth Pafford, Anita Puckett, Jenny Trapp, Shae Flatt, Myron Rhody, Janice Fish Stewart, Bruce Malone, Jerry Adcock, Susannah Cripps Daughtry, and Julie Young all voted in favor of the motion, but as it would turn out the motion was moot. It was later learned that in fact all the ARP funds had already been deposited into the county’s account on July 11, and the County Mayor and commission had not been notified.
At the end of the meeting, a dust up between Jerry Adcock and Matt Adcock occurred with Jerry Adcock claiming Matt Adcock had stated that if DeKalb EMS didn’t get raises they would all walk. Matt Adcock denied ever saying such a thing and explained that during budget meetings he was pointing out that surrounding counties pay EMS employees more than DeKalb and that the county was losing employees to those higher paying areas.
The meeting would end with raised voices and finger pointing.
As for the 2022-23 fiscal budget, the property tax rate will be distributed as follows:
· County General: 0.9891 cents
· Highway/Public Works: 0.0326 cents
· General Capital Projects: 0.0734 cents
· General Debt Service: 0.1060 cents
· General Purpose Schools: 0.5298
· Total property tax rate: $1.7308
The budget includes pay raises for county employees and along with teachers and school support staff.
Fire Department: $350,000 toward construction of a new three bay Liberty/Dowelltown fire hall to improve firefighting and EMS services in the western portion of the county.
EMS - $88,642 for 4 - Stryker Lucas chest compression devices and $96,657 for 3-Zoll heart monitors.
Smithville-DeKalb County Rescue Squad - $50,000 for an underwater camera, $7,000 for a raft, and $6,500 for a drone.
DeKalb County Clerk’s office - $26,000 for a BIS outdoor self-service (vehicle registration renewal) kiosk.
DeKalb Health Department - $398,000 as a local grant match for construction of a new county $3.9 million health department center to be funded mostly by the state.
DTC Communications- $750,000 toward a grant match to help support completion of a fiber infrastructure build in portions of DeKalb County.
Water Utilities - The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation is providing $3,730, 767 in funds to the county to be used strictly for water and sewer needs and distributed on an 80/20 grant match basis per project. TDEC will fund 80% of the match with the remaining 20% to be provided by a local source. The county has allocated $373,000 in ARP money to fund 10% of the 20% local match per project with DeKalb County water utility applicants to fund the other 10%.
Other ARP funded projects included in the budget are as follows:
County Complex Renovation: Re-locating County Complex Main office closer to the front door- $20,000
Liberty Tennis Court Renovation: $18,000
DeKalb Fire Department Brush Truck Purchase: $220,000. The county currently has only one brush truck
Bonuses or Premium Pay for County Employees Under the plan, which has been approved with passage of the budget, a total of $372,818 of ARP funds will be distributed to county employees and volunteers. Employees of the county general department will receive a bonus including 75 full timers at the full amount of $2,500 each for their service through the 15-1/2 month pandemic period of March 13, 2020 to June 30, 2021. Eight full timers will get a prorated share at $166.67 per month for the time they worked for the county during a portion of those 15-1/2 months.
Twelve employees of the county highway department will receive the full bonus of $2,500 each while five will get a prorated share. Twenty-nine county volunteer fire fighters will receive either $350 or $300 each based on training attendance during the 15-1/2 month pandemic period and 15 members of the Smithville-DeKalb County Rescue Squad will receive a share of the bonus for meeting certain criteria.
Other budget highlights as approved by the county commission include the following from the School Budget, County General, Capital Projects, and Non-Profit Charitable contributions:
Pay raises - Under the plan employees of the Circuit Court Clerk, Trustee, Register of Deeds, County Clerk, Assessor of Property, Clerk and Master, and Administer of Elections will receive step raises at a percentage of $82,396 per year, which is what all these public officials will earn next year except for the county mayor who is paid more and the administrator of elections who is paid less. The starting pay in year one for new employees will be at $32,134 and top out after 30 years at $46,142. In addition to the scheduled step increases, salaries of all employees of these offices will automatically increase at the same percentage as their employer (office holder) when he or she gets a raise by the state.
The two employees of the county mayor’s office will receive step raises at a percentage of $95,168 which is what the salary of the county mayor will be next year and top out after 30 years. Meanwhile, the wage scale for full time library employees, senior citizens center directors, and custodians will be updated.
EMS: Pay raise of a dollar per hour to be applied to the existing EMS wage scale which tops out at 20 years of service for full time Paramedics, $2.00 per hour increase for full time Critical Care staff, and a $3.00 per hour increase in pay for part-time staff.
Fire Department: – Existing shared county firefighter position pay to increase from $15 to $15.75 per hour. No one specific individual holds the 40 hour per week position. Available county firefighters, who are trained and certified, rotate in and out of the position as needed. No one works more than 24 hours per week.
Funds for 5% grant match ($5,400) to purchase 70 new sets of turnout gear and a 5% grant match ($45,300) to purchase a new Quint fire truck pumper equipped with a short aerial.
Judicial Commissioners: $1,000 increase in pay for each of the three judicial commissioners which is currently $13,900 each per year.
Full-time technician with the DeKalb County Soil Conservation District: The county has budgeted $38,817 including salary and benefits but will be reimbursed $21,000 by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA) and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The actual cost to the county will be $17,817.
Health Insurance: Due to rate hikes and mandates of the Affordable Care Act the county is budgeting an increase of $76,800 in the amount it pays toward health insurance for employees under its group plan. The contribution will go from $350 to $450 per month to meet the federal mandate in covering 64 county employees enrolled in the plan. Under the law, the lowest paid full-time county employee cannot pay more than 9.565% of their salary for insurance.
Schools: The Board of Education is funding a pay raise of $2,000 per teacher and other certified personnel (227 employees) and a $1,000 increase in pay for support staff (173 employees). Half of the ($2,000) increase for teachers is coming from the state and the rest ($1,000) for educators and support staff will be funded locally including plans to absorb projected increases in employee health care premiums.
Smithville-DeKalb County Rescue Squad: $2,500 increase for fuel expense. The county’s total contribution to the Rescue Squad, a non-profit organization, has been $38,321 but will go to $40,821.
Sheriff’s Department - The Sheriff’s Department has been awarded a $264,446 Facilities Confinement Grant through the Tennessee Department of Health to purchase 4 new patrol cars, a booking system, HVAC units, and laptops for the cruisers with no local match requirement for the county. The department will also contract out its food service to a private company rather than continue the operation in-house.
The 2022-23 county budget includes the following spending from the Capital Projects Fund:
Fire Department: Carryover funding of $80,000 already allocated but not spent from this year’s budget (2021-22) as a local grant match for the purchase of a new tanker under the Community Development Block Grant Program.
Funding of $10,000 to add unisex restrooms at two fire stations (Temperance Hall and Belk stations).
Another $25,000 in seed money ($100,000 total) allocated to eventually build a fire department station in the Wolf Creek Community.
EMS: Purchase of new ambulance $225,000
EMA - $14,000 to purchase a RadarOmega system to provide high quality NEXRAD/TDWR radar data to keep the community alert to rapidly changing weather conditions and for an interoperability radio box to allow public safety personnel to better communicate by radio with users from other agencies or departments especially during times of emergencies.
Sheriff’s Department: $65,000 – One patrol car (capital projects fund) and truck for litter pickup (partially funded from litter grant).
Solid Waste-$250,000 for solid waste rollback truck; purchase of used pickup truck, $125,000 for dumpsters and compactors, $100,000 ($50,000 of which is carried over from last year) to replace a couple of convenience site buildings and to supplement a state grant for paving at the county complex, EMS, and 911 parking lots and around convenience site locations and a few fire department stations
Courthouse: Remodeling first floor courtroom of courthouse- $60,000
County Complex sign: $40,000 ($20,000 of which is carried over from last year)
Non-Profit Contributions:
· Tennessee Forestry Division- $1,500
· Plateau Mental Health- $7,180
· Smithville-DeKalb County Rescue Squad- $40,821
· Senior Citizens- $80,645
· Soil Conservation-$84,596
· Chamber of Commerce-$25,000
· Imagination Library-$12,000
· Veterans Honor Guard-$1,500
· DeKalb County Fair-$5,000
· WCTE: $5,000
· UCHRA: $9,717
· Total: $272,959
Photo:
Budget – Commissioner Bruce Malone (left) made a motion that the county not pay any ARP projects until all the money had been deposited to the county. Jerry Adcock (right) offered a second to the motion.
