After two failed amendments and one successful amendment that simply required a roll call vote, the Bulloch County commissioners by a 5-1 decision Thursday approved a county budget that will not require a tax millage increase but also provides no millage rate rollback to offset for real estate inflation.

However, for homeowners who live in their own homes and are either already enrolled for any homestead exemption or – if that isn’t the case – apply at the Bulloch County Board of Tax Assessors office or online at bullochtaxassessors.org by a July 7 deadline, a new state law will hold their 2025 assessment at the 2024 value. For future years, the assessed values of homesteads with the exemption will be held to the national inflation rate determined by the Consumer Price Index whenever the county’s inflation in real estate values is greater.

The newly approved budget is for the county’s 2025-2026 fiscal year, also known as “FY ’26,” which begins this Tuesday, July 1.

After some previous discussion of an alternative budget with some deep cuts in proposed spending, the budget the Board of Commissioners adopted was a slightly revised version of the previously advertised one, that being the only version in the agenda packets for the specially called 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 26 budget setting meeting.

Later, probably in August, the commissioners will set the millage rate and can now expect to hold a series of three tax increase hearings, because they won’t be adopting the fully offsetting rollback rate.

“My bigger concern was, hey, we could have made it to do a rollback this year, but that would have put us so much further behind next year that not only would we have not  been able to do a rollback, but we probably would have had to do a millage increase,” Chairman David Bennett said after the meeting. “As our county continues to grow, just like it’s been doing for the last 20 years, a thousand people per year, we have  to continue to expand services. If we grow and we don’t expand our services, we’re decreasing our services.”

Raises and hiring

The now approved budget includes a 2% across-the-board raise for county employees, as well as up to 1% additional merit raises. It funds 23 new full-time positions and 1 part-time position for additional employees, including 21 added full-time public safety personnel, two full-time public works personnel and one part-time judicial or court employee.

Keeping the same millage rate in 2025 as in 2024, this budget is projected to require $2,255,600 from the carried-over fund balance to “balance” the county’s general fund. In other words, it could reduce the county’s emergency reserve by that much.

But this budget “should provide a level tax amount for Homestead properties, while including an increase for Non-Homestead properties, thus shifting the tax burden away from homeowners onto other property types,” the published summary stated.

The now-approved budget includes almost $72.1 million in general fund spending but $69.8 million in projected general fund revenue. Actual general fund spending for fiscal 2025, now ending, has reportedly reached about $72.15 million. Weather disasters and previously unbudgeted cost overruns in the county’s largely self-funded health insurance plan were major factors in added costs during the old fiscal year.

Previously, at the budget hearing on June 18, Bennett and other commissioners, particularly Commissioner Nick Newkirk, had discussed possible spending cuts for the fiscal 2026 budget that would allow a “full rollback.” But Bennett – who as chairman would have voted only in the event of a tie – emphasized the cuts this would require in planned services.

Not the ‘alternative’

On June 20, a summary of an “alternative” budget, described as “merging cuts suggested by Chairman Bennett and Commissioner Newkirk to achieve a budget that cuts expenditures to a point where a full millage rate rollback can be achieved without using an excessive amount of fund balance,” was posted to the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners page on Facebook.

The suggested spending cuts had included a reduction in the across-the-board pay increase for county employees from 2% to 1% and a reduction in the maximum performance-based raise from 1% to 0.5%.

The alternative budget did not include any of the departments’ requested full- or part-time new personnel positions and would have cut four vacant positions from the Pulblic Works Department and one vacant position from the Recreation & Parks Department.

It would also have reduced funding for employee education and training, travel, dues, professional services, vehicle and equipment maintenance, rental equipment, inmate meals and small equipment for most of the county’s departments.

Regarding “outside” agencies, the alternative budget would have increased Bulloch County’s funding to the Ogeechee Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office by 30% but cut funding to the Development Authority of Bulloch County by 40% from its fiscal 2025 allocation.

With those cuts, the alternative budget would still have required spending $2,063,512 in general fund balance, according to the summary.

Newkirk says ‘no’

But the budget included with the June 26 agenda was not the “alternative” budget with those additional cuts. It was not the sort of budget that Newkirk, and up to a point Commissioner Ray Davis, favored.

“I do not approve this budget,” Newkirk announced. “The citizens of this county last year voted for a change. They wanted to lower their taxes so they wouldn’t continue to rise. They wanted a smaller, more efficient government, and I believe we could have a budget that would have done some of that. But it was going to take out-of-the-box thinking, and it was going to take people at the table to share that vision for Bulloch County.

“For those citizens of Bulloch County, I hear you and I’m fighting for you,” he continued. “You are the reason why I’m here tonight. I know why  I was elected, and I will not forget that. I ran on the campaign of not raising taxes. … Unfortunately, I feel like that I was the only one that wanted to do that.”

County officials need to learn to cut budgets and “not continue to turn Bulloch County into a big government,” Newkirk asserted.

However, he thanked county Chief Financial Officer Kristie King for working with him and providing the information he sought in the previous week. Other commissioners also praised King’s work on the budget at a time when the staff remains without a county manager and assistant manager.

Complex of motions

When Bennett called for a motion, Commissioner Ray Mosely moved to adopt the fiscal year 2026 budget, and Commissioner Anthony Simmons seconded the motion.

Newkirk then requested a roll call vote. Mosley seconded, and the amendment requiring a roll call vote on the budget was approved 4-2, with Commissioners Toby Conner and Timmy Rushing opposed.

Commissioner Ray Davis then offered an amendment “that the 2026 fiscal year budget be modified to a full rollback.” Seconded by Newkirk, this was then treated as an amendment to Mosley’s original motion, which was otherwise to adopt the budget as proposed. But only Davis and Newkirk voted for the rollback amendment, which failed with the four other commissioners voting against it.

“I would like to offer another amendment to the motion,” Davis said then, “that we transfer $100,000 from the Bulloch County Development Authority to the district attorney.”

Newkirk seconded that motion.

But Conner asked, “What’s the purpose of that?” and noted that the commissioners and staff had been working on the budget since March.

“Why are we picking out the district attorney out of all the other things we have going on in this county, internally and externally?” he asked. “What’s with the big deal of robbing Peter to pay Paul?”

Davis said, “I met with the district attorney. I personally feel like he’s been understaffed.”

But this amendment also failed on a 4-2 vote, with only Davis and Newkirk in favor.

Davis then asked attorney George Rountree, who was substituting for County Attorney Jeff Akins in his absence, how the county government would continue to carry on business July 1 and after if it did not have an approved budget. Without a budget, individual expenditures would need to come before  the board  for approval, or the board could adopt  some sort  of continuing resolution, Rountree said.

Davis noted that this would be “a cumbersome way of doing business.”

When Bennett called each commissioner’s name for the roll call vote, Davis voted “yes, affirmative,” joining in the 5-1 approval of the budget as proposed, with Newkirk voting “no.