DeKalb County commissioners have finalized a budget that includes significant pay raises for emergency medical services while avoiding a significant tax increase.
DeKalb County Commissioner Mathias Anderson said the county reallocated between $300,000 and $400,000 after the state reduced the amount of money required to be held in reserve for a closed landfill. Anderson said the budget committee has not recommended a property tax increase because the current revenue averages are sufficient to cover the county’s upcoming financial obligations.
“I think the biggest win, at least for me, something that I’ve been really pushing for since I had started a few years ago was our EMS pay,” Anderson said. “We had been losing people pretty consistently to surrounding counties you know just due to pay so I was really happy to get that get that passed.”
Anderson said the new pay scale will give a significant boost of at least several thousand dollars annually to EMTs, advanced EMTs, paramedics and critcal care paremedics in DeKalb County.
“EMS is not one of those things that most people deal with on a daily basis,” Anderson said. “But it’s one of those things that when you call and you need an ambulance you want to make sure that it can get there not only quickly but once it gets there you know you want to make sure you have the right people on that truck to to take care of you until they can get you to the hospital.”
Anderson said the county has also generated approximately $50,000 in new revenue since October by establishing a local building permit and inspection process. Anderson said the county uses a local inspector on a 1099 basis to avoid the long-term financial burden of creating a new department with full-time salaries and equipment costs.
“I really pushed for the 1099 as well because I didn’t want us to get into a situation where you know we create a new department, you know have to buy a truck and you know add a new salary line item and then say a few years from now the building slows,” Anderson said. “I didn’t ever want to get us in a situation where we created a new job that was going to become a financial burden.”
Anderson said the county is preparing to sell bonds for the construction of a new elementary school and a new jail. Anderson said the jail will be funded through a 12-year capital outlay note, while the school will be funded through sales tax revenue.
“The plan is you know we’ll have several million dollars a year that’s been going to debt service to pay for the jail,” Anderson said. “As soon as that is up, that’ll put us in a good place to have funding to to move forward with a new high school and middle school one of those things.”
Anderson said the state is expected to finalize the new property tax rate by the end of the week following reviews by the board of equalization.
