STARKVILLE — The Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors avoided raising taxes and cutting services for the 2011-12 fiscal year budget, which it adopted Thursday at a special called meeting.
The new budget increases county tax revenues by .31 percent ($55,761) from all classes of property growth. However, with general county funds and other funds combined the $30,786,854 total budget is 17.52 percent lower than last year”s total.
Board of Supervisors President Marvell Howard said the overall figure is lower due to budget cuts applied to the 2010-11 budget.
Howard added that the combined budget decrease is somewhat skewed because some expenditures are coming off the books or have been significantly decreased. For instance, the OCH Regional Medical Center construction fund was $12 million last year compared to $4.26 million this year. Also, the county no longer pays $4,500 to rent the building where the Oktibbeha County School District offices were located.
“At one point, we did struggle if we were going to be able to continue all the services without making cuts,” Howard said. “For instance, we were able to continue that without raising fees. We have a lot of services, like justice court, drug court and the emergency 911 service. We were able to keep those allotments at their current level or raise them.”
The 2011-12 budget increases the general county fund by $200,000 to $10,629,268. Close to $6.4 million is alloted to the departments with the highest individual budgets: the Board of Supervisors; the Oktibbeha County Sheriff”s Office and jail; and bridges and roads.
The county millage will remain the at 51.97 mills and the county school millage will remain at 59.00. According to FY ”11-”12 projections, county schools will account for 53 percent of tax levies while the general county tax levies will account for 24 percent.
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