Gloucester County’s proposed $160.5 million budget for fiscal year 2024 was presented by County Administrator Carol Steele during Tuesday’s board of supervisors meeting in the colonial courthouse.
The two largest expenditures in the proposed budget are for school operations and the county’s general fund.
The proposed general fund budget total is about $85 million, with $44 million in remaining funds after amounts are transferred to the School Operating Fund, Social Services, Children’s Act Fund, Capital Improvement funds and to debt services.
The proposed school operating fund is $77 million, with $30.4 million transferring from the general fund. The schools requested that the local contribution from the general fund to the operating budget was requested by the schools at $31 million.
Tax rates
To pay for this budget, supervisors unanimously voted to go to public hearing later this month on advertised tax rates of 58.3¢ per $100 of assessed value for real estate and $2.95 for personal property. The current real estate rate of 72.5¢ per $100 was adjusted downward in response to the countywide reassessment.
The effect of equalizing real estate tax rate to 58.3¢ will have on the budget is a reduction of revenue, said county administrator Carol Steele. She said increases from other revenue sources are projected to account for the small shortfall caused by the equalized rate.
Part of the advertised rates is the return of the $2.95 per $100 of assessed value personal property tax. Last year, the board lowered the personal property tax in response to the inflated values of used vehicles, which have since dropped significantly. Steele noted the $2.95 rate is necessary for the budget to balance and also prevents the board from raising the real estate tax rate.
Initially, Steele suggested advertising a real estate tax rate of 60.5¢ per $100 of assessed value. An advertised rate not necessarily the rate that is used, but rather it is the maximum rate the board can enforce during a fiscal year.
She said the 2¢ difference between the rate the budget is based on and what she hoped to advertise would have been to allow the board some wiggle room if funding needs were to arise. She said the board can always tax at a rate below the advertised rate but not above it.
Supervisors’ vice chairman Ashley Chriscoe suggested setting the advertised rate for real estate tax at 58.3¢ as he felt it would only be fair to Gloucester residents to advertise only what the budget needed after what happened with the reassessment. His sentiments were echoed by fellow board members Phillip Bazzani, Dr. Robert “JJ” Orth and Ken Gibson.
Public hearings on the FY24 budget and advertised tax rates will be held at the board’s Wednesday, March 22 meeting, which will be held at 6 p.m. in the T.C. Walker Education Center.
Other expenditures
In addition to the schools and general fund, other expenditures include:
The Social Services budget is proposed to be $6.6 million with $2 million coming from the general fund. Social Services will have $2 million and $2.5 million coming from the state and federal government.
The Children’s Service Act budget is set at $1.5 million with $650,000 coming from the general fund. The county’s Capital Improvement Project fund has a proposed budget of $7 million with about $3 million coming from the general fund.
The proposed budget for debt service is $7.5 million, with about $5 million being transferred from the general fund.
The general fund in the proposed budget also accounts for a nearly $2 million increase in county contributions to Gloucester and Abingdon Volunteer Fire and Rescue squads. This brings the county’s contribution to the two companies to a total of $5.5 million.
Separate from the school operating budget, the school cafeteria budget was proposed to be $3.6 million and the proposed budget for special education is $694,000. The school’s sales tax has a proposed budget of $6.2 million.
The proposed FY24 budget for the Opioid Abatement Fund will contribute $100,000. Gloucester’s Sanitary District #1 proposed budget is $26,000.
The Gloucester Point Sanitary District has a proposed budget of $26,000. The Gloucester Utility Fund has a proposed budget of $6 million. Mosquito Control is set at $168,000.
Steele proposed the use of $657,000 of the Gloucester County Fund Balance in FY24, with the largest expense being the reservation of $345,000 for replacement of Gloucester County Sheriff’s Office vehicles. $200,000 would be put to the County Administrator Contingency assigned fund balance.
The proposed Unassigned Fund Balance was set at a starting amount of $4.6 million with the possibility of more funds coming from excess revenues or unspent funds from county projects. The initial expenditures for the Unassigned Fund Balance would be about $3 million for CIP cash projects, $500,000 for the first year of the public safety radio lease agreement, and one-time purchases for GFVRS and AVFRS operating budgets.
Steele said the initial spending from the Unassigned Fund Balance would leave the county with only $52,000. She was confident, however, that more money would come for the fund as the year progressed.
CIP
A few changes were made to the Capital Improvement Plan since it was presented earlier this year.
A major change is restoration of the Aberdeen Creek dock. It was originally recommended to be funded within the CIP, but it has been discovered recently that the restoration will be a larger, more costly project that initially thought.
Land around the dock has seen tremendous erosion and before any improvements can be made, the land must be made suitable for any construction. The project is recommended to be funded through grants.
The recommended CIP includes about $4 million in debt financing for a 10-year lease agreement for the public safety project, with annual payments costing the county $500,000. The first year of the lease agreement will come out of the fund balance as the county waits for other debt service payments to end in FY25.
Other CIP projects that were recommended by Steele all fell under cash funding and totaled $3.25 million. The largest CIP costs were $958,000 for school bus replacements, $805,000 for the bus garage conversion project, and $434,000 for the county paving program.
Of the utilities CIP projects recommended for funding, the relocation of the utility yard has been postponed to FY25. In its stead, Steele recommended that water treatment plant modifications be funded at the cost of $575,000 through cash payments.
Cost of living
The proposed budget accounts for a 5 percent cost of living adjustment increase for county employees and a 7 percent increase for law enforcement employees. For school employees, Steele said superintendent Dr. Walter Clemons proposed a 7 percent COLA increase for teachers and paraprofessionals. She said for custodians, cafeteria workers and bus assistants would receive a 2 percent increase from local funding.
Along with the pay increase, three new county positions are included in the proposed budget at the cost of $144,000. The three positions are Family Service Manager, Benefit Program Supervisor and Senior HR Analyst. Four other county new positions and three new utilities positions were requested but not included in the proposed budget.
Reassessment breakdown
Now that the budget and tax rates have been proposed, Gloucester residents will have a greater understanding of what they will be paying in real estate taxes. Gloucester land owners saw their property values shoot up following the reassessment last year.
Members of the county board have said on several occasions that the real estate tax rate will be equalized to minimize the impact of the taxes of newly assessed property values.
Based on the proposed rate of 58.3¢ per $100 of assessed value, 13,177 of the 24,233 parcels in Gloucester County will experience an increase in taxes, Steele said. Of those who will be paying more, the vast majority—10,398—will see an increase of $200 or less.
There will be 10,904 parcels that will see charges decrease, with 8,534 decreasing $200 or less. There will be 142 parcels that will experience no change in tax charges, she said.