Jackson County to resume budget talks mid-month

By DEBORAH BUCKHALTER
Floridan Staff Writer

Jackson County Commissioners set a tentative ad valorem tax rate at 7.289 percent on Thursday, the same millage as last year.
Taking this official action unanimously, commissioners cannot now go any higher as they proceed through the budget setting process for fiscal year 2008-09.
According to the latest calculations based on a state formula, the county could have set the rate at 7.344. Doing so would have generated an estimated $75,000 more in tax dollars than the lower rate adopted by the board. But ever since budget talks first started last month,  commissioners have been working toward a budget based on the lower figure.
Commissioners will resume their budget talks on Aug. 19 and 20, starting at 9 a.m. each day.
Commissioners have cut departmental budget requests in previous meetings, are still $1.2 million dollars short of balancing the budget and are expected to make more cuts going forward.
They’ve already cut most requests for new vehicles and other capital outlay items, set a 2.5 percent limit on raises across the board, and cut bits and pieces from various line item requests in most departments.
In the August meetings, they are expected to take up some other potentially costly proposals and departments may face an uphill battle in getting those approved based on the budget figures.
Several have asked to reclassify a few job positions and increase wages substantially in the posts to reflect the change in duties.
Commissioners are also expected to consider some overdue computer upgrades.
And the board must also decide whether to contribute more to the city of Marianna in its interlocal fire protection agreement with that entity. The county had been paying $10,000 until last year, when it doubled its contribution to $20,000. Marianna is now asking for $85,000 in the base rate and another $96,654 to help pay for a city fire station that was built, in part, to support the Family Dollar Distribution Center. The city contends that the county contracted to pay half the cost of operating the station but has not fulfilled the obligation as the city sees it.
Ted Lakey, county administrator, said Thursday that the county is willing to talk further with the city toward negotiating a reasonable increase in the interlocal contribution and toward accepting a larger share of the burden for the fire station.
He said, for instance, that the county might be willing to assign one of its ambulance crews to the station and pay for some of it’s operation, but did not offer a figure on what he thought might be a reasonable monetary contribution toward either expense.