The County Commission approved the upcoming no-tax-increase budget on Wednesday after Commissioner Tim Boyd moved to hold funds to the Chattanooga Visitors Bureau until it submits a full spending outline.
However, he did not get a second on the proposal.
Commissioner Boyd said the CVB gets $8.4 million from the county portion of the hotel/motel tax - $700,000 a month - but gave only a budget that includes 12 line items.
He said an agency that the county funds at a $300,000 level provided a much more detailed budget document.
He called the CVB budget as submitted "pitiful."
County Mayor Jim Coppinger said, “The commissioners once again showed their support for the fiscally conservative path we have chosen over the last 8 years. We appreciate their support as we continue to make Hamilton County the place that businesses in the United States and across the world want to invest in and that people want to live, work, play and retire here.” Mayor Coppinger went on to say today’s budget is an example of the conservative approach to managing taxpayers dollars that has earned Hamilton County continuous AAA bond ratings from the three major rating agencies.
The new budget provides an increase of $13.9 million in education funding which is 64% of the entire budget. The schools $440,256,738 budget includes funding for needed capital projects which includes two new schools. The budget also provides $55.5 million dollars for the sheriff’s department which includes funding for seven new school resource officers as well as new positions for jail maintenance. Almost $1.5 million dollars has been allocated for highway department needs.
Mayor Coppinger says the budget process began in early 2018 and praised his financial team led by Al Kiser and Lee Brouner. He said, “Al and Lee have done a tremendous job and worked many long hours to present this balanced budget. I know one of the difficult things for us was to look at the budget requests and decide what we need as opposed to what we want.” The financial team ended up cutting 11.6 million dollars from requested funding.
Mayor Coppinger added that once again the county held the line on employee’s health insurance costs with no increase in employee health insurance costs, which saves taxpayer dollars.
Mayor Coppinger concluded his remarks on the budget by saying how optimistic he is for the future of Hamilton County. “We have seen a steady growth in Hamilton County. We have seen consistent population growth which is expected to increase in the coming years. We have seen expansions by our legacy businesses and more companies inquiring about locating here. Our unemployment numbers are at record setting lows. The future of Hamilton County looks very bright for all of our residents.”