Brown County government is heading into 2020 with a budget that is healthy after some cuts were made this fall.

The Brown County Council approved the 2020 budget ordinance at the Oct. 21 meeting. It includes an increase to property taxes next year to allow for a budget that matches expenses and to provide 1-percent raises to county employees. The council approved that increase in August. The idea behind the pay raise was to help county employees cover the increased cost of health insurance if it rises next year.

Council member Darren Byrd voted no to the budget and salary ordinance.

Income taxes will not increase under the council’s budget for next year. The county will raise property taxes by the percentage the state allows, called the “growth quotient.”

The change the council voted for would bring in an additional $159,295 to the county’s portion of taxes, which equates to about 12 cents per every $100 of assessed value.

For the owner of a home with a $150,000 assessed value and a homestead deduction on file, that would equal an increase of $8.26 on property taxes for the home annually. That increase factored in both the standard and supplemental deductions.

In July, the council had voted to “thaw” a property tax levy freeze that had been in effect for the past five years. At that time, council President Dave Redding said the thaw was brought about after the Department of Local Government Finance reached out to the county saying there would be a $208,000 shortfall in the 2019 budget. The DLGF predicted that the shortfall next year would be $500,000.

For 2020, the initial proposed county budget for all funds, including those funded by a tax levy and those monitored by the state, was $20,244,757, according to a handout which consultant Jacque Clements with the Association of Indiana Counties distributed to the council this summer.

Initially, the county was looking at more than $600,000 in cuts that had to be made to multiple budgets, including the cumulative capital development fund, which was underfunded by almost $245,000. It was approved at $549,883 and was advertised at $764,552, according to the DLGF budget report.

At the conclusion of the first week of budget hearings, the council was looking at having to still cut $40,000 from requests. Cuts continued to be made until the council formally approved the budget in October.

Some of the bigger budget request cuts were made in the county commissioners’ budget. The advertised amount within the general fund was $2,901,579; that budget was adopted at $2,755,356.

The final total budget approved for the county was $18,911,613, according to Clements’ recent handout in October.

The 2019 budget had been approved at $17,428,837.06.

The budget adopted was $1,600 over levy, but that was intentional.

“We do that to make that sure all of our rates are good and will be workable for us and we’ll get the levy that we want (by requesting more),” Clements said to the council in October.

In doing that, the county’s general fund will have a cash operating balance of $750,000 in 2020 that should take the council into 2021. “It’s gradually gone up every year. … We’re moving in the right direction,” Clements said.

That cash operating balance will be something the council can tap into next year to help cover any unexpected expenses, like this year’s ambulance contract, instead of going to the rainy day fund.

This summer, the council also approved moving $107,344 from the rainy day fund to cover the remaining bill from the ambulance contract. The total bill for ambulance service with Columbus Regional Hospital in 2018 was $547,540, which was more than budgeted.

In June, the council also approved moving $200,000 from the rainy day fund to the county’s health trust fund to help cover other unexpected expenses there.

The property tax “thaw” was approved the same evening the council approved moving $56,000 from the general fund surplus and $307,344 from the rainy day fund to cover additional expenses in the coroner, juvenile probation, ambulance contract and health trust fund budget lines.

In September, the council approved giving Auditor Julia Reeves the authority to transfer up to $650,000 from the rainy day fund to the health trust fund to help cover medical bills. If the full $650,000 is needed, that would drop the county’s rainy day fund balance to $650,000. Its balance was $1.3 million as of July 1.

The rainy day fund is like a savings account for the county. It’s budgeted to have $1.4 million in it at the end of next year, according to Clements’ summary of appropriations distributed in October.

Redding took a moment during the October meeting to reiterate that the council worked to keep all departments to their 2019 budgets for 2020 with the exception of the county’s election board. The election board’s budget for 2019 was $13,177.36. For 2020, the board’s budget was approved at $170,221, according to the DLGF budget report. This increase is due to the county having to get new voting equipment and pay poll workers for the presidential election next year. The county’s lease of voting equipment expired this year, requiring the board to have to pay for something else.

Redding thanked everyone for working together to prevent the budget shortfalls the DLGF had predicted. “What we’re seeing here is a pretty solid, high-confidence plan,” he said.

At the Oct. 21 meeting, the council unanimously approved the Hamblen Township Fire Protection District budget, which was adopted within levy, and the Brown County Solid Waste Management District budget for 2020, which was $1,000 under levy, Clements said. Both budgets are part of the council’s binding reviews.

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In-town Nashville residents are not likely to see increases to their town property taxes next year.

The town’s tax rate was approved just as predicted, at .3418 cents per $100 of assessed property value, “just a hair under” what it was this year, Nashville Clerk-Treasurer Brenda Young told the town council at the Nov. 21 meeting.

It was able to be reduced because the assessed value of all property in town went up year over year. For taxes payable in 2020, it’s now at $136,703,591, she said. For 2019, it was about $131 million, she said.

As long as property values keep going up, and the town doesn’t increase its budget request, the tax rate can go down. Young read off some figures from the Indiana State Board of Accounts that showed a 5.7 percent decrease in the town’s property tax rate from 2014 to 2019.

This does not necessarily mean that every Nashville property’s tax bill will go down, though, as bills are based on many variables, and town residents also pay taxes to the county.

For 2020, the town’s levy — the amount it can raise through taxes — will be under its maximum by $217.

The town’s general fund budget for 2020 is $737,976. The town has a “local road and street” budget of $10,000, a “motor vehicle highway” budget of $179,013 which also can be used for road work, a cumulative capital improvement budget of $1,600, and a cumulative capital development fund of $60,000 which is shared with the Brown County (Nashville) Volunteer Fire Department.

Strategic Direction Adviser Dax Norton told the council that as assessed value goes up and the tax rate goes down, in time, the council could have more room in its budget to do other projects, such as help the fire department out more, if the council wished, without putting a greater burden on taxpayers. The council had had a discussion with BCVFD Chief Nick Kelp about personnel and funding challenges earlier in the meeting. But if paying firefighters was part of that vision, “that AV is going to have to go up, up, hence, the importance of economic development,” Norton added.

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