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Florence County Council to hold final vote on budget

By Charles Tomlinson | Lake City News & Post Editor
Published: June 17, 2009
Updated: June 18, 2009

A Florence County Council committee will recommend a 1-percent across-the-board cut but no property-tax increases in the county’s fiscal year 2009-10 budget, council Chairman K.G. “Rusty” Smith said.

The budget, which is up for third and final reading Thursday, also includes an annual solid waste household fee of $58 instead of the originally proposed $89, Smith said. The fee, which has been $35.52 a year, goes toward operation of the county’s manned convenience centers as well as disposal and hauling of garbage.

The main reason the county finds itself in such a “predicament” with the budget is because of a $1.6 million cut in state funding to local governments as well as $7.8 million in state-imposed mandates, Smith said.

The county’s state health insurance premiums also are increasing by $350,000, according to county documents.

“To be blindsided by this kind of threw us off course for a while, but we’ve leveled the ship,” Smith said.

The county’s proposed budget has $49,557,000 in the general fund.

An additional proposal that had been on the table was a 2.2-mill property-tax increase, which would have added up to less than $9 on a $100,000 house, Florence County Finance Director Kevin Yokim said earlier this month. Council’s Administration and Finance Committee, however, will not propose any higher taxes, said Smith, who also serves as the committee’s chairman.

“We just didn’t feel that it was the right time” because of tough economic conditions, he said.

The committee met June 10 to develop its most recent recommendations on the budget. Smith said so many people attended that the committee moved the meeting from a conference room to council chambers.

As for where the 1-percent cuts will be made, the county is leaving that decision to its departments, which deal with their individual budgets daily, Smith said.

“Hopefully they will be better than us going in and cherry-picking what to cut,” he said.

The recommendations don’t include a cost-of-living adjustment for employees, but the county is avoiding job cuts, Smith said.

Raising the solid waste household fee, meanwhile, aims to end a $2 million subsidy from the solid waste fund to the general fund, which would make the general fund “whole” and the solid waste fund self-sustaining, Yokim said earlier this month.

At Thursday’s meeting, Council also will consider second reading of an ordinance to give a local company an option to buy, renovate and preserve the former Florence County Library building.

The ordinance, introduced by title only after an executive session June 4, would give LIBRIS Redevelopment LLC a chance to buy the land for its appraised value minus the cost of remediation such as asbestos removal, Florence County Adminstrator Richard Starks said. The company, however, would have to pay at least $50,000 for the building even after any such costs are subtracted, he said.

LIBRIS Redevelopment comprises attorneys Ben Zeigler and John Chase and architect Randy Key, all of Florence.

The private group is pursuing a for-profit venture that will restore the library to its original, 1925 appearance and offer professional commercial space in the building, he said.

IF YOU’RE GOING

WHAT: Florence County Council regular meeting, including public hearings on: