Madison County finances discussed during Tuesday meeting

JACKSON, Tenn. — The Madison County Budget Committee is facing a few hurdles that could cause them to change a few of their plans.

“We just talked about the tax rate sheet from last year. We have approximately 235 pennies. Each penny represents probably about $245,000,” said Doug Stephenson, Chair of the Madison County Budget Committee.

Juvenile court services, solid waste and education capitol are just a few areas that are in need of a couple of extra pennies.

“The ESSER money is not able to be used for buses. So we’re going to have to figure out what we’re going to be doing on buses for next year because we have worked with Dr. King on having a five year plan on replacing buses,” Stephenson said.

There is about seven and a half million dollars left in the AARPA fund.

Due to oversea battles, the federal government has yet to announce when the committee will be getting additional funds for AARPA, causing the committee to come up with other backup plans.

“We’re scrambling trying to decide how to move forward until we hear from the federal government on the rest of that money,” Stephenson said.

For the next fiscal year, the committee plans to have a lot of capital projects.

One of those projects include a proposed 2% raise for employees.

“We’ve done things in this past year, like bonuses and things. We’re looking at that too right now. It’s just a lot of question marks because we don’t have all of the information that we need,” Stephenson said.

The committee will continue to discuss and plan what to do next and where to borrow needed money.

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