County Commissioner's Office

County Talk
By
Lamar Paris - Commissioner

Government cost increases

Q.  A couple of weeks ago you explained why the county was paying $500,000 per year for the ambulance service, but can you explain some of the other cost increases the county has had to deal with?
A.  Since I took office in 2001, the judicial budget has increased by $670,000. This includes the Judges, District Attorney and Public Defender’s office. We are a part of the four county Enotah Judicial Circuit.(Union, Towns, White & Lumpkin)   This is an area of government that we have very limited control of and is an item that must be funded year after year.  The larger the population, the more criminals we have, which requires additional staff and judges. This is a necessary cost that helps provide and enhance public safety.  It takes slightly over ½ mil of property taxes to cover this cost.

Q.  How much has the cost of Public Safety increased over the past eight years?
A.  The increase has been tremendous. When you include E911, and the Fire Department as well as the jail and Sheriff’s Dept., our budget has increased around $3,000,000 since 2001.  These are not costs that anyone can control, but includes additional investigators, officers and firemen, increased medical cost for inmates, employee healthcare costs and necessary equipment to properly operate these departments.  Our jail remains overcrowded and in need of expansion, but we will continue to delay this for as long as possible.

Q. How have you been able to hold taxes down as low as you have with all these increased costs?
A.  It has taken a lot of difficult decisions and hard work by many county employees and elected officials.  If you take the additional $500,000 from the ambulance service that I discussed in last week’s Q & A, add the increase in the judicial budget of $670,000 from the previous question and add the $3,000,000 public safety increase, you already have $4,170,000. 

Q. What else has increased in cost?
A. Everything!! Our cost for the Senior Center, Dept of Family and Children Services, and several other agencies we participate in funding, has added $420,000 to our budget since 2001.  If you also add in cost increases in Recreation, the Library, Development Authority, NRCS, Historical Society, and many more, it adds nearly $500,000 in cost.

Q. Haven’t taxes had to go up to pay for some of these costs?
A. Absolutely.  But we have done an extremely good job of keeping them as low as possible, including reducing the mil rate for  three years and last year actually reducing the budget and slightly lowering your property taxes which hopefully we will be able to do again this year.  

Q.  What is the total of all these cost increases addressed in previous questions?
A.  Basically, we have only increased property taxes by $4,041,000 over the past eight years.  Much of this increase has come from growth of the digest from new homes and lots, with a relatively small portion coming from property tax increases.  Our budget has actually increased by $4,742,000 over eight years which is about $700,000 more than the property tax increased. The difference has come from increasing revenues in other areas.

Q. Are you trying to tell us that our property taxes have not increased very much?
A.  No. What I am telling you is that the cost of government has increased in every county all over the state and our increases have been less than the vast majority of counties.

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