No New Taxes, Raises Part Of Proposed Budget

On Thursday evening, the Highlands County commissioners will hold the first of two required evening public hearings on the proposed county budget for fiscal year 2008-09, which starts Oct. 1.

The public hearing will start at 5:30 p.m.Thursday in the county commission's meeting chambers.

County Administrator Michael Wright, who has been the county's chief operating officer for 73 days now, will announce his biggest decision on county spending on Thursday.

One item in the proposed budget is borrowing about $11.2 million to build a new building for the Highlands County Sheriff's Office. While the building has been planned for several years, Wright may recommend putting off the project for a while.

At the county budget workshop at the commissioner's meeting Tuesday, Wright said he will announce Thursday, probably at the public hearing if not before, whether he will recommend to go ahead with the project or put it on hold.

The biggest news to most county taxpayers is whether the new budget will raise or decrease their property taxes or keep them the same.

The proposed budget keeps the millage rate the same, at 7.3544 mills. Most owners of real estate, homes or commercial buildings will see their taxes drop slightly, because the assessed market values of real estate have dropped due to the recession.

The other major news in the budget is pay raises for county employees.

Wright and county Office of Management and Budget staff are recommending across-the-board raises of 3 percent for all of the more than 400 employees of the Highlands County Board of County Commissioners.

Other county workers, though, will receive an extra 1 percent in raises.

Law enforcement officers in the sheriff's office will get 4 percent raises, as will all employees in the county clerk of courts office, the property appraiser's office and the supervisor of elections office.

The sheriff, property appraiser and elections supervisor are all independently elected, county constitutional officers. Wright explained that the constitutional officers set whatever salaries they want to for their workers and then the county commissioners must come up with the tax money to pay that cost.

Highlands County Tax Collector Charles Bryan also is a constitutional officer, but he is asking for the same 3 percent pay raises for his staff that is being sought for the county commission's employees.

Sheriff Susan Benton has asked for 4 percent raises for law enforcement officers and 2 percent raises for the civilian employees in the sheriff's office.

At the public hearing, OMB officers and Wright will spend about an hour explaining the proposed budget, which must be adopted by the commissioners before the end of September.

Then, citizens can either ask questions of any county official and/or make comments about the proposed budget.