Your last chance to voice your opinion on the Habersham County government’s budget plan for 2016 is coming up on Monday.
The Habersham County Board of Commissioners will conduct a second Public Hearing for the FY2015-2016 Budget on Monday June 22 at 6:00 pm in the Jury Assembly Room at the Courthouse in Clarkesville. They are expected to vote on the plan at that meeting.
You can get copies of the proposed Budget in the Commission office located inside the old courthouse in downtown Clarkesville and there is a summary available on the Habersham County website.
Some of the major changes in the upcoming spending plan include hiring new employees in a number of departments, pay raises for all county employees and higher insurance expenses. Despite the increased costs, the overall property tax rate will remain the same.
New Hires
$336,311 is set aside for new hires but some of that will be funded by budget cuts in other areas. Sheriff Joey Terrell says he cut his department’s spending by $83,000. “We cut some overtime and some part time.” The savings covers about half the cost of hiring 2 new patrol officers and 2 detention center officers. “We will hopefully be adding some extra personnel to the roads soon to better protect our citizens.”
| Dept. | New Hires | Cost* |
| Sheriff | 2 Patrol Officers | $89,658 |
| Detention Center | 2 Officers | $78,156 |
| Fire | 3 Firemen | $117,234 |
| E911 | 1 Operator | $38,778 |
| Animal Control | 1 Part-Time | $12,485 |
* Includes salaries, benefits and other employee costs
Employee Pay Raises
Sheriff Terrell did not get the 5% increase in officer pay he’d asked for back in March. Instead, the county will boost all employee pay by 3.5%. “We asked for 5% because we’re losing people. We’re losing people to industry because they can make more money and get better insurance,” explains Sheriff Terrell. While it’s less than he’d hoped, he says he is satisfied with what commissioners are willing to do, “The 3.5% the county is considering is a good thing because you have to try to retain your employees.”
The 3.5% pay raise for all county employees will cost $274,707.
County Manager Phil Sutton says employee retention is a real problem because Habersham lags behind nearby communities when it comes to our overall pay scale, “We’re between 12% and 13% behind the market. It was okay when the economy was bad and we had a lot of unemployment. Now that unemployment is around 5%, we are having a hard time keeping people.”
911/EMA Director Lynn Smith agrees, “Our turnover is very high. It’s hard to get qualified people. Out of ten people that I hire, I might keep two.” Smith has employees sign a contract stating that they’ll stay with the department for 3 years or face a financial penalty. “Some are willing to pay the penalty to leave and go to other counties where they can make more money. I can’t compete.”
Leaders say they’d like to do more to increase employee pay but can’t with the current financial situation. “The economy needs to turn around a in a much bigger way for us,” Sutton says. “We need to really see more commercial and industrial development here before we see any growth in revenue in order to catch up at all.”
Higher Insurance Costs
Taxpayers will have to pony up $122,800 more to cover county workers insurance costs in 2016 while employees will face higher deductibles and out of pocket expenses.
The cost to taxpayers for providing 137 “Employee-Only Plans” and 68 “Employee + Family Plans” will jump by 8.5%, from about $1.4 million to more than $1.5 million, for the fiscal year beginning on July 1.
Finance Director Trey Wood says it could have been more, “We went into this expecting a 14-15% increase.” Wood and Sutton worked with the broker to lower the cost to taxpayers but the compromise will cost employees.
Currently, the county picks up 100% of the premium costs for employees and 60% of premiums for covered family members. In order to maintain that promise, county leaders will switch to a higher-deductible plan in 2016. The deductible for the single employee will go from $3000 to $3500 while the family deductible jumps from $9000 to $10,500. The maximum out-of-pocket expenses increase by $1600 for the individual and $3,200 for families.
All other benefits (Co-Pay, Emergency Room, Prescriptions) remain the same.
Employees who want to keep the current, lower-deductible/lower-maximum, plan can do so but the difference in cost will come out of their paycheck.
| Habersham Employee Insurance | Option A | Option B |
| Deductible (Single/Family) | $3000/$9000* | $3500/$10,500* |
| Coinsurance | 80% | 80% |
| Max Out of Pocket | $5000/$10,000* | $6,600/$13,200* |
| Premium Cost Single | $12.65** | $0.00** |
| Premium Cost Single (Tobacco User) | $47.92** | $35.28** |
| Premium Cost Family | $169.60** | $138.35** |
| Premium Cost Family (Tobacco User) | $256.75** | $225.51** |
*In-Network **Per Pay Period
Lower Tax Digest
Property values in Habersham County rose by $17 million but a reduction in the overall tax digest will mean less revenue for the county.
Now Habersham received a draft copy of the soon-to-be-released Tax Digest which lays out the value of all the property in Habersham County. These initial figures show the current total value of all “Real and Personal” property in the county is more than $1.2 billion, an increase of about $17 million over 2014.
“You can see some growth as you go through here,” Finance Director Wood points out. “That’s a good thing in my opinion.”
Unfortunately, for the county government, the taxable value of cars, trucks and other motor vehicles dropped by right at $20 million and the value of mobile homes dipped slightly. The drop in motor vehicle taxes is not unexpected. In 2013, Georgia shifted from yearly ad valorem taxes to a one-time “title tax” on cars and trucks. That line item of the digest has dropped every year since.
Wood stresses that all these numbers are just a draft of the official digest, “They (Tax Commissioner and Tax Assessor) are still tweaking some of the numbers so it could adjust a little bit.” We expect to see a final version before the end of the month.
The draft digest suggests the county government will likely have less to spend in 2016. While real estate values trended higher, once you include homestead and other exemptions, the county expects to collect $105 thousand less in 2016 than they did this year.
Millage Rate Remains Steady
Habersham County Commissioners won’t increase the millage rate (10.785) so they’ll have to get by on about 1% less in property tax revenue. That’s not a surprise to Wood. His office developed the new 2016 county budget very conservatively, projecting no growth in property tax revenue at all.
Have Your Say
The budget must be in place by July 1. The Habersham County Board of Commissioners will conduct a second Public Hearing for the FY2015-2016 Budget on Monday June 22 at 6:00 pm in the Jury Assembly Room at the Courthouse in Clarkesville. They are expected to vote on the plan at that meeting.
You can get copies of the proposed Budget in the Commission office located inside the old courthouse in downtown Clarkesville and there is a summary available on the Habersham County website.
