Chris Shearer
Contributing Writer
SNOW HILL — Worcester County Commissioners continue to struggle with the harsh realities of a $6 million budget shortfall, and the prospects of potentially being forced to raise county taxes slightly.
On Tuesday, the Worcester County Commissioners passed a motion on setting a date for a public hearing on the proposed FY2017 budget real property tax increase.
The hearing will be held at 7 p.m., on Tuesday, May 3, 2016 at Snow Hill High School.
As it stands, the General Fund requested expenditures for the FY17 Operating Budget outpace revenue projections at current tax rates by $6.5 million. This large budget shortfall must be addressed by the County Commissioners either through spending cuts or increases in taxes and fees.
In March, Chief Administrative Officer Harold Higgins explained that this was the only budget that was being considered by the commission. He went on to discuss the factors contributing to the large difference between the FY16 and FY17 budget.
Substantial costs like the Sheriff’s Office’s requested increase of $914,202, the jail budget request of $353,272, due to additional personnel and increases in the inmate’s medical contract costs. Additional funds were also requested in the FY17 budget for the Fire Training Center of $100,000 to cover the cost to purchase one replacement hazmat response vehicle. $1 million to fund the Roads Division paving efforts was requested, and grants to towns have increased by more than $1 million.
One of the biggest factors contributing to the Worcester County FY17 budget is the budget request made by The Worcester County Board of Education (BOE) for $82,583,680 in addition to an existing school construction debt of $10,765,450 paid by the county on behalf of the BOE. The BOE’S $93,349,130 accounts for 49.8% of Worcester County’s total estimated expenditures for FY17.
BOE increases of $3,228,127 to provide payroll increases of 2.3%, bus contractor increases, and increased starting teacher’s pay by 2.2% from $42,433 to $43,384.
The proposed increase would take effect July 1, 2016 and looks to address this shortfall. The taxable base in the county is set to increase by a little more than 1%. At the current rate, this nets the county about $1.5 million more in tax revenue than during FY16. If the county wanted to maintain the budget numbers from last year, they could drop the property tax rate down to 82 cents from 83 cents per $100 of tax assessment.
This would take into account the growing assessment base and the spread of the tax load on the larger community. However, since Worcester County is considering not reducing its real property tax rate enough to fully offset the increasing assessment base, it proposes the adoption of a real property tax rate of 87 cents per $100 of assessment. This rate is 5.5% higher than the current constant yield tax rate and will generate approximately $6,618,196 in additional revenues that will allow all the expenditures of the FY17 budget to be funded.
These changes to the tax rates mandate a public hearing be held to discuss the proposed changes.