Greg Bacon, the co-chair of Knox County’s finance committee, says it took a lot of work, but the county’s property tax levy will stay the same.
The county board formally approved their 2017 budget last night. Bacon says it helped that the county was able to make more than $1 million dollars in cuts last year.
Another factor that help was the extra revenue generated by rising property values, increasing the county’s overall tax base.
Bacon says the past couple of years “has been a nightmare.”
“With the way the state pays and everything like that, we’ve been saddled with some budget shortfalls and everything,” Bacon says.”But we’ve done some creative financing. We’ve watched where things were going.”
Another change the county board made last night to next year’s budget was to restructure the cost of liability insurance.
Previously the liability expenses came out of the tort fund.
Now, agencies in the county like the Mary Davis Home, the Knox County Nursing Home, Animal Control and the county health department must pick up more of the tab.
The county plans to fund liability insurance for those agencies at 50 percent of the cost next year.
But that match will decrease by 10 percent for five years after that so those organizations will eventually be paying all of it.
The board also voted to charge an additional gate fee to the county landfill and the fee per ton to the landfill will be $2 dollars starting in December.
