John Coffelt, Editor

During the April 6 Coffee County Budget and Finance Committee meeting Mayor Judd Matheny said he hopes to decrease property taxes by $.01 in the 2023-24 fiscal budget.

Those come alongside what could be a 4% employee raise and a one-time bonus that will average out to a total of 10% added to each employee’s annual pay.

This was the initial meeting of the committee that will work through the proposed budget over the coming months, but last Tuesday, Matheny seemed confident in those recommendations.

“I would also like to propose to this body a 1-cent property tax decrease. That’s not a big deal, I know, It’s going to cost us about $150,000 dollars,” Matheny said. “I would like for all of us to be able to vote for a property tax decrease.”

Matheny said that he “would like the property owners of this county to know that we are casting the gaze that way.  We’re not going to go too far out the gate, but we are going to entertain this.”

He expressed cautious optimism, while also wanting to avoid too much at one time and having to raise taxes down the road.

Matheny pitched roughly 10% increases in employee pay.  

“Many department heads have put (raises) what I’d like to do as mayor is put in an about 4% raise across the board. If (the department heads put in for a 7% raise, (they) may only get 3 1/2% in this budget, but the 4% will be overlaid over that,” Matheny told the committee.

Matheny said that he wants to add a non-reoccurring bonus around November. He described the bonus as a cautionary provision incase revenues trailed off. A raise would be reoccurring and would require budgetary maintenance.

“I don’t want our folks to run off when they get a better offer. I want them to know they have a future here. That’s what this does,” Matheny said.

As an estimate, county employees making about $40,000 a year would get about $1,600 reoccurring increase and a $2,000 bonus. That would give them the net increase of about 10% extra next year.

The following fiscal year, Matheny is eyeing 3% increases in the following two budgets, plus bumps.

The raises will about to about $600,000 in reoccurring costs and an addition one-time cost of a similar figure.

Chairman of Budget and Finance Lynn Sebourn cautioned committee members to not overreact to what appears to be an initial deficit in the fund balance.

“Keep in mind, that with very, very conservative estimates on the review side,” he said. “Every year we say we’re going to have this big deficit, then we come around the next year and we’re about the same fund balance. We hope that trend continues.”

Sebourn said that the mayor’s proposals would leave an adequate reserve in the fund balance.

“We don’t know where we’ll end up next year, but we know we have enough,” he said.

John has been with the Manchester Times since May 2011. John has won Tennessee Press Association awards for Best News Photo and placed in numerous other categories. John is a 1994 graduate of Tullahoma High School, a graduate of Motlow State Community College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He lives in Tullahoma, enjoys painting, dancing and exploring the outdoors.