CLEVELAND — The White County Board of Commissioners this week approved a fiscal year 2019 general fund budget of $18.9 million — a $2-million increase over the 2018 budget.
Much of the increase is to provide pay raises for county employees and for some new positions being added in various departments.
The vote on the budget Monday night was not unanimous with Commissioner Terry Goodger voting no on the spending plan.
Goodger said he knows the county needs a budget, but he was not in favor of increasing the budget just to provide the pay raises. The increase in the budget likely will require an increase in the tax millage rate.
“I want to tell you this is on top of the fact that the people have already had their assessments out and their assessments have gone up, and those assessments don’t reflect this other 1-mill increase, so the assessments they got are not the whole bill; more is coming,” Goodger said.
Commissioners still will need to set the tax millage rate before property owners know how it will affect them, but they can’t do that until a final tax digest has been provided by the tax assessors’ office. That digest should be available sometime in July.
