Commissioners adopt tax rate, budget

A special meeting of Freestone County Commissioner’s Court last week determined the county tax rate and finalized the budget for the 2021 Fiscal Year.

At the Aug. 19 meeting, commissioners decided upon a no-new-revenue tax rate of .393751, which is a change from Fiscal Year 2020’s figure of .409. The decision on the rate took in several factors, including assisting those that saw a raise of appraisal value across the county.

The adopted budget came with several changes as well, prompted by discussions held in budget workshops as well as the Aug. 19 meeting.

One major subject of the final budget discussions was employee pay, with the court choosing to include a two-percent raise for all county employees, sans elected officials and Sheriff’s Office deputies.

Precinct 1 Commissioner Andy Bonner noted that he would vote for the increase in pay, but did not want to see layoffs in the coming year as a result.

The county’s upcoming Election Administrator position will not be factored into the two-percent raise.

For the deputies, the FCSO employees received their own specific pay increase, allowing them to fall in line with the office pay grade.

The total raise between the office employees is approximately $33,000, and will be taken out of county Capital Outlay funds.

Freestone County Sheriff Jeremy Shipley was present for budget workshops as well as the Aug. 19 meeting, making the case for 10 deputies, as well as two sergeant positions in the FCSO. Shipley noted that he wasn’t asking for anything more than what he felt his employees deserved, and thanked the court for their aid in previous years.

Other changes to the budget in cluded additional funds given out to ambulance and volunteer fire department services throughout the county. Fairfield and Teague services were able to receive an extra $50m000 in the budget.

Also on the agenda during the Aug. 19 meeting were:

-Acceptance of county reports, including reports from the County Auditor and County Treasurer for the month of July.

-Discussion of retirees supplemental insurance, with talks based around the wording of the insurance agreement. The agreement states that those that worked for the county for at least 12 consecutive years would be eligible for supplemental insurance upon retirement.

The debate came from whether this should apply for employees who had worked 12 consecutive years in the past, and could potentially be applying for the supplemental insurance. It was noted that because it is hard to keep up with former employees regarding receiving supplemental insurance, it would be hard for auditors to determine amount of liability.

-Appointed Election Judges and Alternates for a two-year term between the dates of Sept. 1, 2020 and Aug. 31, 2022. All slots for these positions have been filled by county party chairs, with the exception of Precinct #12 in Liberty, which is missing judges on both the Republican and Democratic sides.