Lowndes County Administrator Ralph Billingsley appeared before the county school board Tuesday and said if the school district does not decrease its budget request for this school year then taxes for county residents may increase.
Billingsley said a decrease of about $518,000 in the district’s budget would keep taxes from rising later this month.
The Lowndes County School District board of trustees, after hearing Billingsley out Tuesday, ultimately did not change its budget, but the district’s superintendent has indicated the issue will be readdressed. The budget was adopted at $121,353,580 on July 1, and the district is asking for $15,787,976 of that to come from Lowndes County.
As it stands today, the LCSD budget would raise the millage rate 1.56 mills.
Should the district keep its budget in place, county homeowners will see an annual tax increase of $15.60 on a $100,000 worth of property. Commercial property taxes would increase $23, according to Greg Andrews, the county’s tax assessor/collector.
The school district is currently operating with 46.71 mills. When the district was preparing its FY2015-2016 budget, the projected mill value stood at $338,000, based on recommendations from the Lowndes County tax assessor’s office.
Andrews is now recommending budgets be made with mills at $332,000.
“On July 6, I presented the preliminary tax rolls to the county supervisors,” Andrews said. “On July 15, they came back and allowed depreciation on $118 million worth of value, that in the past had not been depreciated. They did that nine days after I presented the preliminary roll, which did decrease the value of a mill some…The major impact was from the reduction of inventory at Airbus and reduction of inventory at Stark, which will both probably go up next year.”
Billingsley told the board that due to the discrepancy between projected mill value and actual mill value, LCSD must either decrease their request by around $518,000 to continue operating at 46.71 or the county will have to raise taxes.
“If you do not want to change the millage rate, you have to send us a corrected budget order,” Billingsley said.
Kenneth Hughes, the district’s chief financial officer, requested the budget stay put. Hughes said adjusting the budget now, with the district having mapped out its finances for the rest of the school year, could cause problems down the road.
“My request would be to leave the budget the same,” he said. “This is what you advertised, what you held your public hearing on. This is the request you adopted.”
Trustee Brian Clark made a motion to accept Hughes’ recommendation. That motion died without a second.
LCSD Superintendent Lynn Wright recommended the board go forward with the reduction in budget requests. Trustee Wesley Barrett made a motion to reduce the request $518,000. He was seconded by board president Jane Kilgore.
The motion died 2-2 with Clark and Jacqueline Gray opposed. Trustee Bobby Barksdale was not present Tuesday.
Wright: Tax raise unlikely
The superintendent told The Dispatch after the meeting the board will hold another meeting later this week. With Barksdale in attendance, Wright said he is confident the board will vote to decrease their request.
Andrews also said he believes the district will decrease their request to avoid the tax increase.
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