Mayor Jim Coppinger today will formally present the 2017 Hamilton County budget proposal to county commissioners.
The proposed $679.6 million budget amounts to a $14.3 million increase over last year. It includes a 2.5 percent salary bump for county employees but no property tax increases and no county commissioner discretionary funds. It marks the second year in a row that Coppinger has dropped commissioners' special project money from a budget proposal.
Also read...
* Hamilton County mayor: 62 percent of budget going toward public education
Staff Photo by Dan Henry / The Chattanooga Times Free Press- 5/17/16. Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger speaks to Kirk Kelly, interim superintendent and Christy Jordan, assistant superintendent of finance as they present the school budget during the Hamilton County Commission meeting on May 17, 2016. on Tuesday May 17, 2016.Last year, six commissioners voted to take $900,000 out of the county's general fund balance to use as discretionary money after Coppinger left it out. The six commissioners - Chester Bankston, Tim Boyd, Randy Fairbanks, Jim Fields, Warren Mackey and Sabrena Smedley - also torpedoed Coppinger's veto of the amended budget. Commissioners Gregory Beck, Joe Graham and Marty Haynes opposed the measure.
On Tuesday, neither Coppinger nor any of the seven commissioners attending a comprehensive budget workshop mentioned the absence of discretionary funds from the proposal.
"Everyone knows it," Coppinger said after the meeting.
Bankston, who serves as commission chairman, would not comment, but Graham expressed approval.
"We have limited funds and we're using them wisely," Graham said.
Last year, Bankston said it was "the right thing do" after the divided commission voted to withdraw nearly $1 million from the general fund balance.
"I have so many projects in my district that just don't get funded outside of discretionary spending," Bankston said. "I have the largest district. I have 11 schools in my district and every one of them gets a part of that money."
In May, Boyd said he wanted to ask his colleagues - by email - what they thought about discretionary fund policies. He clarified he would only use the email responses for informational purposes and that no deliberation would take place electronically.
The general fund balance - basically, the county's savings - currently amounts to about $91 million, Coppinger said. Of that amount, the county reserves $35 million for debt service obligations, he said.
Mackey questioned Coppinger over the projected growth of the fund balance.
"In order to make a difference there, you'd have to have a lot more revenue coming in and lowering your expenditures," Coppinger said.
"It will probably flatten out."
The proposed budget also calls for 62 percent of expenditures - $417.7 million - to go toward the Department of Education, Coppinger said. This represents an increase of $12 million over last year's funding.
Another 3 percent of the overall budget goes to the school system in the form of debt service for capital projects, he said.
Proposed Hamilton County Sheriff's Office expenditures amount to $33.5 million, representing a $1.9 million increase, which includes $606,000 for raises and $484,000 for eight school resource officers that had been paid for with grant money previously.
Property tax revenues are expected to grow by $3.9 million, which amounts to a 2.9 percent increase, according to the budget proposal.
Employee salary increases account for $2.65 million of the budget, Coppinger said. About 57 percent of the general fund budget goes toward employee salaries and benefits.
Coppinger said the county still has 54 employees less than it had in 2011. That year, the county eliminated 57 positions and has only added three positions since then.
About 12 percent of the proposed budget - $26.6 million - goes toward housing inmates.
Mackey voiced concerns over a proposal to privatize Hamilton County's jail, citing the need to focus on prevention, especially low reading scores.
The 2017 budget timeline calls for the county commission to vote on the proposal on June 29.
Contact staff writer Paul Leach at 423-757-6481 or pleach@timesfreepress.com. Follow on Twitter @pleach_tfp.