Millage rates will stay the same for Lowndes County residents as the board of supervisors passed its Fiscal Year 2013 budget Friday morning after a public hearing was held. The mills for the county will remain at 38.01 while the Lowndes County School District’s requested mills will stay at 47.76.
The budget has $33,442,777 in revenues and $35,050,292 in expenditures. According to County Administrator Ralph Billingsley, the deficit would come out of the county’s cash reserves.
“We’ve done well with building our reserves over the years,” Billingsley said.
Friday, $42,000 in expenses were added as a capital improvement amendment. The money will go toward partially funding a ball field at Plum Grove, a project District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith said had been on the table for quite a while.
“We’ve been talking about this for three years,” Smith said. “Now, three years later, all we have received is promises and lies.”
The motion to amend the budget by $42,000 was made by District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks. Brooks abstained from voting on the budget and the county’s millage rate.
Brooks said he felt the budgetary process was not transparent.
“My lack of support for the budget has nothing to do with the budget,” Brooks said. “It’s because there is a lack of transparency. I don’t like the budget process. I don’t like the back- door secret budget meetings.”
District 1 Supervisor and board chairman Harry Sanders said the process was “done to the letter of the law.”
“By code, unit system counties, and we are a unit system county, charge the administrator with making the budget — Ralph Billingsley was charged with creating this budget,” Sanders said. “It’s his job. There is nothing in the code that says he has to talk to the board about the budget but he did that anyway. (Leroy), you chose not to participate in the budget discussions. The only meeting I had with Ralph was when he asked me to. It’s not good for you to sit here and grandstand in front of all of these people and the press when everything was done to the letter of the law. That’s why we are having a public hearing — so the public will have some input. They are the ones paying for this budget. To say we are having backdoor meetings is ludicrous.”
Brooks said it was his choice not to participate in the budget talks.
“I never said it was wrong, I said I don’t agree with the process,” Brooks said. “You don’t make the rules — this isn’t the rules according to Harry Sanders. It’s my prerogative. The city has an open budget process. We did it that way for 20 years.”
The board also agreed to buy the old Peterbilt property at 8793 Hwy. 45 N. for $450,000. The property will be used for the road and maintenance department. The money was not amended to the FY 2013 budget as it will come out of an account that contains interest money from the hospital sale.
The budget will go into effect October 1.
Jeff Clark was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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