Split Beaufort County Council passes budget, approves tax hike

Beaufort County residents will see a bump in their upcoming property tax bills.

In order to balance the county’s 2017 fiscal year budget — approved Monday after a 6-4 vote by a split Beaufort County Council — property taxes will be going up roughly 5 percent.

For owners who live full-time in houses valued at the county’s median of $265,000, that means roughly $22 extra in annual property tax payments. Owners of second homes, which are taxed at a higher rate than primary homes, would pay about $33 more.

Despite the increase, Beaufort County “still has one of the lowest millage rates in the state,” deputy county administrator Josh Gruber said prior to Monday’s County Council meeting.

Still, Councilman Tabor Vaux said the hike was too much to stomach.

“It is too much of an increase,” he said before voting against the budget. “It is as simple as that from my perspective.”

Councilwoman Cynthia Bensch agreed.

“I believe in a balanced budget,” she said. “I don’t think we should spend more than we take in with revenues.”

Councilmen Rick Caporale and Brian Flewelling joined Vaux and Bensch in opposition to the new budget.

The county’s $116.3 million operations budget will go into effect July 1. Expenditures are about $8.5 million more than the current fiscal year.

A large chunk of the budget increase is due to funding set aside to hire about 25 new employees.

When the economic downturn began in 2008, the county “did a lot of cutbacks,” Gruber said.

Nearly 150 full-time employees were shed between fiscal years 2010 and 2016.

“We had been doing more work with this less people for long time,” Gruber said.

Even when the new employees — who will be spread across nearly all departments — are hired, “we will still be slightly below what our staffing levels were in 2009,” he said.

The county has also added $2 million this fiscal year to begin implementing preliminary recommendations from an ongoing study of public employee salaries and compensation.

That money will “essentially serve as a 3 percent cost of living increase” for county employees, Gruber said. “but that 3 percent may not be evenly spread out.”

In other words, employees with many responsibilities may be eligible for higher raises than employees who make relatively few critical decisions on the job.

Implementation of these compensation changes is aimed at ensuring competitiveness with other nearby government agencies and the private sector, Gruber said.

“We want to be right in the competitive mix” in order to recruit and retain competent employees, he said.

Caporale took issue Monday with the fact that the full employee compensation study has not been presented to the council.

“We are spending $2 million, and I havent a clue (as to why),” he said.

The new budget also added $200,000 to be used for economic development purposes.

The county recently established the Beaufort County Economic Development Corp., which held its first meeting last week.

That group is tasked with helping develop new enterprises, supporting existing firms and bringing new companies to the area.

In other Council action

The Beaufort County Council granted preliminary approval on second reading Monday for the Beaufort County School District fiscal year 2017 budget.

Balancing that budget — and closing a $5 million revenue gap — would require a tax increase for owners of commercial property and second homes.

The owner of a second home valued at $265,000 would pay almost $130 more in annual property taxes, according to a school district’s proposal.

The County Council will hold a final vote on the district’s budget at its next meeting June 27.

This story was originally published June 13, 2016 at 8:26 PM with the headline "Split Beaufort County Council passes budget, approves tax hike."