By Ryan Lewis
Correspondent
JASPER, Tenn. – When city administrators announced their plans to increase property taxes in Jasper, they said a lot of the extra money would go toward paving streets.
At the September meeting of the Jasper Board of Mayor and Aldermen, officials moved to carry out those plans by approving a budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year.
But paving wasn’t part of the budget, according to Alderman Paul Evans. He said he wouldn’t vote for the budget until paving is included.
“We sat here in a public meeting last month and we told the people this is what we’re going to do with that money,” Evans said.
“We came up with this rate [increase] for the specific purpose of paving streets, improving street signs, buying police cars and giving employees a 2 percent raise,” he said. “Everything else is in. There’s no paving in here.”
John Moore, a certified public accountant who worked on the budget, said there was about $13,000 set aside for paving, but it was located in a miscellaneous line item under the general fund.
“The idea was that, as we saw the budget amounts come in the way we were projecting, we’d amend the budget and move some of that money to the paving area,” Moore said. “It was my understanding that we weren’t going to put [anything specific] in there until we got a better handle on how much income was coming in.”
Alderman Steve Looney suggested moving the $13,000 into a new line item under “Repairs and Cleaning” instead of “Miscellaneous,” so there would be no question what the money was set aside for.
“We know that, with the property tax increase, we are going to have income,” he said. “Supposedly, it will be enough to cover the paving.”
Moore said the move would not change anything about the budget, there just would be a new line-item location for it.
“I have no problem with that,” Jasper Mayor Billy Simpson said. “I thought we’d already discussed it, and I didn’t think there was any question about [what we would do with the extra money].”
After the change, the board unanimously approved the new budget with the property tax rate increase.
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.