Bulloch County Commissioners met Thursday for a work session to discuss the FY 2026 budget proposal where they discussed a $7.2 million increase in the budget, anticipated revenue shortfalls, and how to best balance the budget.
Chairman David Bennett prefaced by saying commissioners have worked with staff in recent weeks to look at the projected $7.8 million deficit – roughly 10% of the budget. He said he asked CFO Kristie King to cut the budget by 10% as a starting point.
“There are some things she presented to me that I’m just not comfortable doing. For example, the majority of our budget goes to fund 4 essential functions: law enforcement, fire, EMS, and public works and I am not comfortable with the idea of cutting any of those services and compromising the safety of the people of this county.”
Bennett offered an example of expanded EMS services with a new EMS station in Stilson. “It’s badly needed. If you live out that way, you know how long it takes to get an ambulance to your house. 22 minutes on average,” he said. “But if we ask our EMS folks to cut 10% of their budget, we’re asking them to rob Peter to pay Paul to expand services.”
“There ain’t a whole lot of fluff there,” Bennett said. He implored people not to take the presentation as ‘what’s going to happen’ because the current status is a discussion of courses of action. “But we’re going to have some hard conversations about where we’re going to go.”
Bennett said he still believes what he campaigned on – that property taxes should be as low as possible – but that the reality is “that is how our government is currently funded.”
Presentation by Chief Finance Officer Kristie King
$74,355,683 initial proposed budget in April 2025
$71,917,870 proposed budget as of May 15, 2025
This is a $2.4 million reduction.
*Previously, there was a calculating error with the health insurance software and the budget now reflects a $3 million increase in health insurance.
The proposal as of May 15 also eliminated four requested positions – 1 from Correctional Institute, 1 EMA position, 1 Engineering position, and 1 position in the Tax Commissioner’s office.
New positions that are still in the budget
- Part-time constable for Magistrate Court – needs constable to serve papers, help collect fines and fees – “will pay for itself”
- 6 EMT paramedics for Stilson station
- 4 jail officers – part of 5-year hiring plan
- 1 patrol deputy part of 5-year hiring plan
- 1 SRO for county schools that already have SROs
- 8 SROs to work in the city schools
- 1 full-time admin forCoroner – they currently have no administrative work
- 2 solid waste equipment operators
Estimated Revenues depending on millage rate options
Full rollback (based on current tax digest, so could change) – $66,591,00
King outlined a list of items that are 1x costs, which are ideal for using the Fund Balance on
- Impact studies
- New employee things
- Money to be set aside for contingency – set aside some budgeted money for unexpected expenses that may come up during the fiscal year.
One time costs and contingency funds are approximately $890,000.
The county is still short $4.5 million in revenue over expenditures. If not using the $890k in one-time costs from fund balance, the county is still short $5.3 million.
At ¼ mill rollback, the budget is short roughly $3.4 million in revenue over expenditures.
Keeping the millage rate the same, the budget is short revenue over expenditures by about $2.4 million.
King recommends using some fund balance to balance the budget.
“We have had a healthy fund balance and I feel pretty confident that we would be OK using that number out of fund balance to balance the budget this year.”
Where to Pull Money to Support Expansion Expressed by Commissioners
- Can’t cut from Sheriff and add positions
- Can’t cut from Coroner and add an employee
- Lots of support for public works, so it is not optimal to cut from there.
- Those departments are collectively almost half of the budget.
- Judiciary is not an option as the county is legally obligated to fund the judiciary
- Outside agencies also bind commissioners by some statutory obligations to fund, so minimal area to cut
- Reserve Funds – there is a listed cut here because the recommendation is to use reserve funds this year to balance the budget, so they will not add to it while also taking from it. some because planning to use fund balance
The idea is not on the table, but King discussed what would happen if ‘all recreation’ activities were cut – summer camps, after school programs, athletics, etc. – saying the expenditures would be reduced by approximately $2.5 million. That would be somewhat offset by revenue generated by the programs – which totals over $1 million – which would also be lost.
To avoid cutting positions and pay of employees, that eliminates $19 million of $30 million of the remaining 50% of the budget that is not public safety/public works..
$10.9 million of that $30 million is non-personnel costs that are not Sheriff, EMS, CI, Coroner, public works/solid waste.
For a full statutory rollback, looking for $4.5 million – that means departments must cut by 41%. “You’d be asking all of the remaining departments to cut 41% of their non-personnel budgets.” King said they don’t have 41% to cut and still allow them to do the jobs they have to do.
The Risk of Using the Fund Balance to Balance the Budget
King said the county had a health fund balance at the end of the fiscal year, but the county also suffered from hurricanes, which totaled around $13 million. To date, the county has received a little more than $5.9 million from FEMA and between $6-7 million more is on the way.
“If we had not had that money sitting in the fund balance, we would have had a cash flow problem,” King said. The county tries to keep at least 25% of the budget in unassigned fund balance. At the end of FY 2024, the county had 33% of the annual budget in unassigned fund balance, which King said assisted the county tremendously.
“This [budget] is a $7.2 million increase from FY 2025 because we’re expanding services. We’re a growing county. If we’re cutting, we’re going backwards. If we’re not increasing to match inflation, we’re already cutting. So, growth is here, we’re trying to catch up, we don’t need to fall behind,” King said.
She ultimately recommended that commissioners do not plan to roll the millage rate back to the full rollback rate.
“The fund balance – that’s a mandate,” Commissioner Timmy Rushing said. “If you don’t do a rollback, nobody’s taxes is going to change. If you do a rollback, you’re just taking more from the fund balance and you’re just putting a bigger band aid. Now, another hurricane comes this year and you’re sitting here without no fund balance that can cover what we got to cover, I promise you there’s gonna be a lot of people that miss more work getting a paycheck cause they can’t get out of their house cause Dink can’t fix the road than you gonna pay in property taxes.”
Rushing also said he doesn’t know of a property owner who pays enough taxes to cover the cost of all the services they receive.
No action was taken Thursday other than the acknowledgement that commissioners will not roll back the millage rate. Commissioners will hold public hearings on the proposed budget once the proposed budget is finalized and posted online for citizen review. The fiscal year begins July 1, 2025, so the budget must be adopted prior to that date. The millage rate is not set until the fall.
Commissioners Nick Newkirk was absent and Anthony Simmons arrived approximately 10 minutes before the end of the work session.
