County wants austerity budgets

The new fiscal year begins July 1.

Committee members, meeting Tuesday night, also set a deadline of June 1 for agencies to submit budget amendment requests for 07-08 and will look more closely at "no new money" amendments shifting funds between accounts. Members said that agencies shouldn't automatically be allowed to spend extra in one line item as a reward for under-spending in some other line item.

The county has caught up with a slowdown in revenue earlier in the year and now expects to meet its revenue projections for fiscal year 07-08. But high fuel and food costs have pushed some budgets to the breaking point.

"Everybody that's got transportation, it looks like their budget's going to be blown," said County Mayor Eugene Ray.

County officials don't expect the situation to be much better in 08-09. An increase in employee insurance costs which took effect midway through the current fiscal year will affect all of the 08-09 budget, doubling its impact.

The committee did approve amendments to the 07-08 budget for the No Child Left Behind program, the Animal Control program and the Health Department.

A request for an amendment to the sheriff's department budget was declined. The request was to shift some salary funds between line items to account for changing job responsibilities; committee members told Capt. Tony Barrett (who is also a county commissioner) that the department should wait and address the matter in its 08-09 budget request.

Meanwhile, in some good news for the county, Moody's Investors Service has increased the county's bond rating to A2, its highest ever. Ray said that good financial decisions and the availability of cash reserves contributed to the rating. A high bond rating leads to more favorable interest rates when the county needs to borrow money.

The county has also received an "unqualified" opinion in its most recent audit, the first time that has happened in many years.

Commissioner Linda Yockey, who attended Tuesday's meeting as an observer, asked about the status of the property tax relief program authorized by Tennessee voters last year. Last year's referendum made the program optional; individual counties must still decide to adopt it, and Bedford County has not yet done so.

The program would freeze the property tax bills of senior citizens with lower-than-average incomes for their county, exempting them from future tax increases unless they purchase or improve property. But if the county needed an increased amount of income, that income would still have to come from somewhere, which could magnify the impact of any property tax increase on those who aren't eligible for relief.

Financial Management Committee chairman Roger Brothers said the impact of the program is still being studied. In any case, the program wouldn't take effect until the January after commissioners vote to approve it, so it won't have an impact on the coming budget process.