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Commissioners adopt budgetBy Virginia Culp - WCU Intern |
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The budget for the 2001-02 fiscal year was unanimously adopted at Thursday night's (June 21) meeting of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners.
The county's $34,587,603 budget does not include a tax increase and is based on the current tax rate of 48 cents per $100 valuation. Changes to the proposed budget included elimination of the county planner and the alcohol information officer positions, allocation of $14,000 to purchase a ballot scanner for the elections department and change to the budget structure of Jackson County's volunteer fire departments. The board voted to eliminate the firefighters' contingency fund and put the money directly into the departments' regular budgets, dividing funds equally among the seven departments. This means that each fire department will receive $4,050 in addition to its regular funds. The new budget will go into effect July 1. Darlene Fox, clerk to the board and county finance officer, gave a report in which she said all departments are keeping their expenditures under the budgeted amount and all construction projects are progressing. In other business, the board agreed to appoint Mary Moody, Inez Smith, Rose Smith and Peggy Revis to the Jackson County Nursing and Adult Care Home Community Advisory Committee. In the matter of the steam pipe replacement at Smoky Mountain High School, the contract was awarded to Bolton Corp. of Asheville for $199,900. The board formally approved tax collection agreements with the towns of Highlands, Dillsboro, Sylva and Webster. The agreements allow Jackson County to bill and collect real and personal property taxes for the towns in return for a 1.5 percent commission on all current and back taxes, assessments, penalties and interest. The contracts are for 10 years and do not apply to taxes assessed before 2001. Records for county and town taxes will be maintained separately by the Jackson County tax collector. Jackson County's tax collection in these areas has been based on an oral agreement in the past, Fox said. Also June 21, Tamera Crisp, director of planning and economic development, reported on the status of the county's Smart Growth initiative, which gives Jackson County residents a chance to voice their views on issues that affect the area. Crisp presented the board with a timetable of work that has been completed, including the 15 original meetings with communities around the county, current work and future plans. The board worked with Crisp's timetable to schedule a second round of meetings to begin in September and run into November. At these meetings, Crisp and other county officials will present residents with the compiled responses from the first set of meetings, ranked in order of voter priority. The new meetings will give residents a chance to make changes to the list before Crisp presents her findings to the board in August 2002. In the interests of efficiency, the board decided to combine meetings that had smaller turnouts last time. While the last set of meetings ran for almost eight months, the new set is projected to take only 10 weeks. At present, the new Smart Growth meeting schedule is as follows:Sept. 4: Cashiers, Glenville and Mountain townshipsThe meeting concluded with a closed session for personnel during which no action was taken. The next regular commissioners' meeting will be Thursday, July 5, at 7 p.m. |
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