Franklin County looking at 13 percent drop in tax revenue just in time for budget season

County commissioners are getting ready to start their budget negotiations for the 2012-2013 fiscal year and they are going to have substantially less money to work with this year.

The board already knew that if it doesn’t raise taxes it would probably see a drop of about 10 percent in tax revenue for the next year, it turns out that estimate was a little optimistic.

Clerk of the court Marcia Johnson said without raising property taxes from last year the county will see a nearly 13 percent drop in tax revenue.

At the current millage the county will raise about 8.2 million dollars for next year’s budget; a drop of over 1.2 million dollars from the current tax year.

And actually the financial picture is a little bleaker than that.

The county will also lose about 293 thousand dollars because of the loss of a federal contract that allowed federal prisoners to be held at the county jail.

The county will also see an over 32 thousand dollar loss in Medicare sharing payments.

On top of the decreased revenue the board is also getting budget requests from groups it has never funded before including the Apalachicola library and the Gulf County senior Citizens for meals on Wheels.

County commissioners have asked that the various departments they fund to not budget any pay raises this year and if at all possible to keep their budget totals the same as last year.

Commissioners said non-governmental organizations like the Humane Society can also be looking at big cuts to their county funding this year.

The board has scheduled two days of budget talks this month on the 19^th and 20^th.

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