The Jackson County Commission approved a new budget Monday that lowers the property tax rate to 1.518 while providing pay raise for county employees.
Jackson County Commission Chair Joey Denson said the county was required to adjust the tax rate downward following a property reappraisal cycle.
“It’s a balancing act,” Denson said. “You can’t fund everything that everybody wants, because there’s no way we couldn’t do that. No county can. Especially a small rural county.”
Denson said the budget includes a three percent raise for employees in addition to longevity pay. Denson said the county implemented longevity pay several years ago to help retain staff who have served for 20 years or more.
Denson said the previous property tax rate was set at 2.55. Denson said the new rate is intended to equalize the tax burden, while individual property assessments may have changed based on the reappraisal.
“As far as individuals’ property assessments, some probably went up, some probably went down,” Denson said. “That is based on the reappraisal. So not everyone’s property assessments went up, not everyone’s went down. But our tax rate went down, but it overall it should equal out to pretty much the same as last year.”
Denson said the county is seeing increased revenue from new home construction and higher property values. Denson said sales tax revenue has also increased, largely driven by a rise in online orders.
“Used to, a 400,000 dollar home in Jackson County probably now is 750 to 800,000 based on the construction, based on the way things are selling here,” Denson said. “So you know, that, that drives your values up. Values go up, you know, that changes everything.”
Denson said the county is also set to pay off the debt for the jail facility. Denson said this move will free up recurring tax dollars that can be reallocated to other areas of the budget.
“I’m proud that we was able to fund some things in this budget that we’ve not been able to fund in the past,” Denson said. “Some youth sports got some funding this time that we’ve never been able to fund in the past. The fire departments received some additional funding that they’ve never been able to receive in the past.”
Denson said officials understand that residents are facing difficult economic times and do not want to see tax increases. Denson said the commission must balance the limited revenue sources of property, sales, and wheel taxes against the services the public wants funded.
“We don’t like to lose our employees to other counties, other municipalities, or whatever like that,” Denson said. “So we trying our best to keep the salaries up as much as we can. Again, being a small rural county, we’re not able to compete with a lot of larger counties and state agencies and things like that, but we’re striving as much as we can based on the dollars that we have to work with.”
