County property taxes would increase for the first time under the current county administration with a plan Commissioner Dennis Stuckey offered Wednesday.

His plan would increase taxes by about 9.3 percent and would include raises for employees of 2.75 percent, along with departmental cuts of about 2.75 percent.

For a home assessed at the county average of $148,000, a property owner would pay about $553, or about $48 more, next year. The millage rate would increase from 3.416 to 3.741 under Stuckey's plan.

"I don't throw this out or offer it up lightly," he said. "It's not something I particularly want to do or take pleasure in, but I feel like the best course of action is a little more even approach going in to next year, offering something to our employees … and trying to get some value that will assist us in protecting our cash reserve."

Earlier this month, commissioner Chairman Scott Martin proposed cuts of 5 percent to 10 percent in each department to balance the budget without increasing taxes. His plan would have tapped the county's fund balance, which is estimated at $7.7 million to $10 million.

Martin said he wouldn't support Stuckey's budget, citing the economic difficulties residents are facing, such as wage freezes or cuts and other increasing taxes and expenses.

"Almost every school district is raising taxes. I just saw the city is raising taxes an average of $75 per household. Well, that all pounds on people," he said.

And not every department has made the same amount of sacrifices or is as efficient as possible, he said.

"I know it seems fair just to go say 2.75 percent for everybody, (but) I think us sitting here, we all know that there's entities and operations that pretty much have not put enough skin in the game during the course of us making difficult decisions," Martin said.

Stuckey agreed and said reviews for efficiency would continue.

Commissioner Craig Lehman said he supported Stuckey's plan.

"This board has done a very good job of looking for efficiencies over the last four years," Lehman said.

"It is no small task to hold the line on taxes over a four-year period the way this board did — particularly given the economic circumstances that have existed," Lehman said. "The hardest thing to do is to keep costs down when a recession hits because there's just some inflators within your budget that are there regardless of what the economy is doing."

Lehman said county also has worked to reduce debt. This year, he said, the county was able to save more than $7 million through debt refinancing.

The county also has borrowed responsibly for capital expenditures, he said.

At a budget work session three weeks ago, the commissioners asked departments to figure the impact of Martin's plan after Stuckey said he was concerned those cuts would affect services.

What he heard, Stuckey said, "is basically we'd be cutting into the bone at that point, and this is going to, in many instances … impact services, some of which are public safety issues."

Stuckey said tapping the fund reserve can't continue.

"We budget to spend that reserve each year," Stuckey said. "Eventually, we're going to get burnt by that, and when that happens, our only course of action to pay bills is to go out and do a tax anticipation note — in other words, we borrow money to pay a current expense."

The commissioners plan to present the budget to the public Dec. 10 at 6 p.m. and adopt it at a 9:15 a.m. meeting Dec. 31.
dnephin@lnpnews.com