For Immediate Release
Contact: Michael Brewer, PAO

The Butts County Board of Commissioners, meeting in Special Session on Thursday, unanimously passed the Fiscal Year 2022 Budget and levied a reduced annual ad valorem millage for 2021 in separate votes. This followed a series of public hearings held over the last two weeks allowing the public to come in and speak on both budget and millage. The adopted General Fund budget of $23,117,341.00 addresses a number of items that have been the focus of both the Commission and Administration, with priorities determined as a result of planning retreats, strategic analysis and employee input.

The adopted budget takes into account some $1,871,596.00 of increased revenue. This increase is attributed to several areas including new growth in the tax digest, increased residential building and permitting, as well as enhanced revenue collection methods in fees for services. The increases in funding will allow the County to improve service delivery in three key areas that include public safety, employee compensation and retention, and improving our capital reserves.

Two public safety priorities addressed in this year’s budget will be the restoration of personnel to staff the fire engine at Station 6 and also bringing the daily on-duty ambulance count back to four EMS units on duty, ensuring that both our fire and ambulance availability is back to optimal levels. These services were cut from the budget a few years ago but with call volume increasing, having both of these units back in the daily matrix will reduce the likelihood of our public safety forces being overwhelmed during times of high call volume. It will also help us maintain our ISO insurance ratings and reduce stress on other responders by more evenly distributing the call volume.

Personnel retention and satisfaction was also addressed, with a much-needed overhaul of our position classification and compensation plan, which was last addressed in 2015. Butts County’s position in our job market, which includes a variety of counties ranging from smaller, similar and much larger, had fallen behind, resulting in higher turnover rates, which in turn costs the County money in the long run. The new position classification plan will provide fair and equitable compensation, taking into account an employee’s training, education, longevity and position, as well as creating a strategic career path for employees who wish to move up to higher and more responsible positions within their chosen occupation. Employee benefits, which were enhanced in previous years, remain in place without reduction and should also help the County transition from that of a “training ground” to a long-term employer, also improving our retention rates.

Rebuilding our strategic reserve funds has also been a priority of the Administration, and the Board of Commissioners strongly supported this position. Much of our strategic reserve, built up over a number of years, was depleted in 2016 and 2017. Efforts to rebuild this began in 2018 and this budget continues that trend, allowing the County to add more funds to our reserves. Because County revenues come in cycles, there are times of the year that we need to draw on our reserves to keep the funding of government services level until those revenues come in. Having a fund balance of at least four months of operating capital allows us to do that without having to reduce services. It’s like borrowing from ourselves when revenues are low, rather than borrowing from a bank and paying interest for that loan. Improving our reserves also allows the County to bond monies at lower interest rates and avoid costly Tax Anticipation Notes, which are short-term loans designed to provide liquidity during the months that tax revenues are not coming in.

The FY 2022 budget accomplishes all of these objectives and more, while also allowing us to reduce the millage rate from 13.209 mils to 12.959 mils. This, combined with the reduced millage passed by the Butts County Board of Education puts the total millage rate at the lowest level it has been since 1993 and well below most of the counties in our part of Georgia, at 29.047 mils.

Following unanimous votes approving both the budget and millage rate, Commission Chairman Joe Brown stated “I want to commend our Administration, the Tax Commissioner and Tax Assessors for all of their hard work on this year’s budget and tax digest process”.

The new budget will take effect July 1st.