Fentress County will host a public hearing Monday in hopes of getting ideas from the public on ways to increase county revenue.
The public hearing comes after the county opted not to raise property taxes this year. Fentress County Executive Jimmy Johnson said property taxes and a private act are the only ways for the county to increase revenue. Johnson said the public hearing is to see what would be feasible for the county to pursue.
“It’s nothing that I’m saying is gonna happen this year, not saying anything is gonna happen next year,” Johnson said. “It’s just to get input from the public because you have people, you know, a lot of folks saying why don’t we do this? Why don’t we do that? And the burden has always fallen, I’m sure, like in all counties, a lot of times it falls back to the property owners.”
Johnson said the county has one private act, which is a wheel tax that was passed in 1989. Johnson said finding ways to increase revenue will help tackle the rising cost of operating the county.
“Of course, inflation, you have to deal with that each year,” Johnson said. “So it’s just like anything, you don’t want to keep going into your savings year after year after year because it’s just like being at home. You know, you have savings and you don’t like to dip into those unless you just have to, and so that there is kind of where it is.”
Johnson said and estimated 42 percent of the county’s population owns property and pays property taxes. Though the county is searching for ideas to increase revenue, Johnson said the county is still in good shape.
“We can take care of what we have,” Johnson said. “But if you want anything, say you want to go out here and build something or do something, you’ve got to have the revenue there, and if it’s not in your budget to do it, if you don’t have the revenue to take care of that budget then you know, you need to find revenue some place else.”
The public hearing will be held from 5pm-7pm at the Historic Fentress County Courthouse in the courtroom.
