Yadkin County Manager Aaron Church has submitted the recommended county budget to the county commissioners for their approval.
The budget amount is $34,992,708, a 0.66 percent increase from the last fiscal year’s adopted budget of $34,762,496.
“The jail is mandated, and we have to add a new staff for the jail addition,” Church said. “We had to bring the budget in virtually flat while adding $800,000 in mandated services. So there had to be nearly $600,000 in cuts.”
Church said he was able to make those cuts without causing any employees to lose their jobs. Cuts were made to non-mandated areas and through cutting frozen positions and not filling positions that were open due to retirement or termination.
“I think it’s a good, tight budget. I’d say we cut just as much this year as last year in order to get the jail,” Church said.
Church said that major change to the budget this year was the upgrade of the emergency services communication systems. This update is required by January 1, 2013 or the county will face an $8,000 per day fine. The proposed budget recommends $155,000 total to prepare for the upgrade that has a projected cost of $300,000 to $3,000,000.
The proposed budget will maintain the current property tax rate of $0.69 per $100 of valuation.
The budget includes a use of $1,344,981 from the general fund balance to balance the proposed budget. The fund balance appropriation is a $38,700 increase from last year’s adopted appropriation of $1,306,281.
The proposed budget projects a 3.5 percent property tax revenue increase from last year’s projected revenue. The total projected revenue from property taxes is $19,227,621.
The proposed budget estimates that sales tax revenue will bring in approximately $4,547,424, which is an overall increase of 2.2 percent.
The recommended budget will maintain the same funding for Yadkin County Schools this fiscal year. The proposed budget suggests $6,979,975 be appropriated to the schools assuming the count is able to draw down $750,000 for debt payment for the Forbush and Starmount Middle Schools from the North Carolina Lottery Fund.
The fire department tax rates will remain the same across all 10 fire districts in Yadkin County. The county was also able to maintain the current funding for the senior centers, YVEDDI, the library, rescue squads and Surry Community College.
“If you look around the state a lot of schools and senior centers and things like that aren’t being funded like Yadkin County has been able to continue to do so that’s something we’re proud of,” Church said.
The proposed budget took five months for Church to complete. A special meeting and public hearing has been set for the proposed budget. The meeting will be held on June 5 at 7 p.m. in the commissioner’s meeting room at the Yadkin County Human Resources building at 217 E. Willow St. During this meeting the Yadkin County Board of Commissioners will consider adopting the proposed budget.
Reach Lindsay Craven at 679-2341 or at lcraven@heartlandpublications.com.
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