BAKERSVILLE – The Mitchell County Board of Commissioners approved the 2020-2021 budget on Monday, June 1, at its regular meeting.
County Manager Tim Greene read a summary of the proposed budget at the meeting, highlighting some of the larger expenses, revenues and changes from the previous year.
The total general fund budget is set at $20.8 million, a $1.5 million increase from the 2019-20 fiscal year.
Because of large expenses and an estimated flat line of sales tax, a large revenue stream for the county, Greene and the board agreed they will see a significant tax increase next year.
“I’m not going be here, but this budget, you know this is major,” said commissioner Danny Burleson. “Without revenue going out the top, this is a major tax increase next year. There’s no way around that.”
One of the more significant expenses is the funding of the Mitchell County Health Department, part of Toe River Health District, or TRHD. In the budget proposed, the county planned to fund the health department its entire budget request of $478,000, an increase of about $25,000 from this past year, plus approximately $60,000 in additional funding for a new nurse.
To do this, however, the county planned to empty the Pruitt Health fund completely, which had around $272,000 remaining.
In this past year’s budget, the county funded the health department’s 2019-20 request of $462,000, of which all but $17,000 was funded with money from the Pruitt Health reserve.
After Greene finished reading the budget plan summary, Commissioner Steve Pitman made a motion for the board to approve the budget.
The motion failed. Breaking a tense silence, board chair Jacob Willis asked his fellow commissioners about their issues with the budget.
In an echo of his comments at the board’s regular session on May 4, Commissioner Jeff Harding expressed his disapproval to fully drain the Pruitt Health reserve to fund the health department.
“With the COVID-19 situation that’s gone on, every county in the Toe River Health district is going to see expenses go up because of testing,” Harding said. “So, I’d rather not exhaust that Pruitt account. And if their expenses go up from COVID-19, then we’ve got some money to fall back on in the Pruitt account.”
Harding suggested the county take only $85,000 out of the Pruitt Health reserve and fund the rest of the health department’s request out of the general fund balance.
After discussion among commissioners about whether to take $85,000 out of the Pruitt Health fund or to fund the TRHD completely from the general fund balance, Harding made a motion to amend the budget with his suggestion. The motion carried after a second from Willis.
Burleson and Grindstaff did not add further comment about their disapproval with the budget.
Willis then asked if a commissioner would make a motion to adopt the 2020-21 budget with the amendment. Harding made the motion. After about 20 seconds of silence, it appeared the motion would fail again, but Willis seconded the motion, thus approving the budget.