Questionable past spending choices may have led to Pickett County implementing a 74-cent property tax increase.
That according to Charlie Curtiss, Executive Director of the Tennessee County Commissioners Association (TCCA). Curtiss addressed the Pickett County commission and residents Monday prior to commissioners approving the increase.
“Large tax increases… they don’t happen. Large tax increases just don’t happen, they’re caused,” Curtiss said. “They’re caused by bad mistakes from previous years. There was a pretty big lick – $600,000 in the red – last year. There was $900,000 spent in the last month before nine of these commissioners took office.”
The 2019-2020 budget proposal was the first compiled under current County Executive Carey Garner. Garner won the 2018 primary over then-executive Richard Daniel who served in the position until August 2018.
Ccommissioners had originally declined the 74-cent increase in June prior to the county being turned down by the Comptroller’s Office for a $600,000 TRANS loan to make ends meet. County officials said during Monday’s meeting the The Comptroller’s Office declined the loan due to the commission not passing a spending plan.
At one point during the meeting, Curtiss compared the county’s situation to purchasing a new house and finding issues down the road.
“It would almost be like going and finding a real nice house and everything looked great,” Curtiss said. “You move in, a big storm comes through, and all of a sudden you’ve got roof leaks in two or three rooms. ‘I ain’t fixing it, I’m going to let it go.’ Then you get your first water bill up $500 [because] you’ve got a leak between the house and the meter. You either ignore it, or you fix it. You’re at the point where you’re going to have to fix it.”
Curtiss said the choices of past administrations and commissions placed the current Pickett County commission in a tough position when it came time to pass a budget.
“Most of this money in this tax levy… 52 cents of it is going into your reserves. It’s not going to be spent,” Curtiss said. “You had $640,000 spent last year in the red. That’s 43 cents over your tax rate. The nine of you that are new had nothing to do with that. The other three may not have voted for it, I don’t know, I wasn’t here. But you’re between a rock and a hard place.”
Curtiss encouraged members of the public to continue attending the commission’s meetings to help prevent overspending from happening again.
“The best thing that could happen to the county is you folks show up every time they have a meeting,” Curtiss said. “It ain’t these peoples’ fault (the commissioners) right here. But if y’all had been together last year, I guarantee they wouldn’t have blown $900,000 last year because that money had to be transferred in that last month.”
Curtiss has previously served as the White County executive during the late 1980s and was the District 43 state house representative until 2014.
