I received an email from a Wilson county resident with specific questions about the Wilson County budget. I encourage all citizens to learn more about county government and what your tax dollars do for you.
Some of the questions were about budgets prior to my tenure as a Commissioner, so I reached out to Mayor Hutto and Wilson County Finance Director, Aaron Maynard to address some of the gentleman’s inquiry.
Normally, I wouldn’t publish questions that were sent to me in an email. However, these questions were posted in several large Facebook groups, so I wanted to ensure everyone who read the questions got the answers.
Can you please explain to me what the Sports Authority is, does, and on what they are spending nearly $1 million every year?
The Sports Authority was established when the Speedway was being built. The agreement with the developer of the Speedway was that we would use the additional property tax collected on the Speedway Property to fund the bonds that were issued by the Sports Authority to pay for the development.
Right now, the property tax collections on the Speedway Property total $961,167. The bond payment for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2018 (the newest audit report at this date) was $1,278,892.
As part of the agreement, the Speedway developer was required to establish a letter of credit to secure the bonds. If the property tax collected from the Speedway property is insufficient to pay the principal and interest on the bonds, the letter of credit put up by the developer makes up the difference.
The county is not obligated to pay anything other than the property tax collections on the Speedway property to the Sports Authority which is then used to pay the bonds. Any shortfall is the responsibility of the developer.
– Aaron Maynard, County Finance Director
The sports authority started in 2004, before the vast majority of the current county commission took office, and ends in 2030.
Also included in these contributions is over $1,000,000 every year for the Libraries. I assume the libraries are completely funded by tax dollars but is this required by law or county charter?
Funding of the library is required by law. The libraries have what is known as a maintenance of effort law. In short, that means that the library must be funded at least at the same level as it was in the prior year. We are the primary funding source for the library. Lebanon, Mt Juliet, and Watertown participate, but to a lesser degree than the County.
– Aaron Maynard, County Finance Director
The maintenance of effort is outlined in Tennessee Code Annotated 10 -5-101, which you can read by clicking here.
How can you justify taking citizens’ money just to turn around and give hundreds of thousands of dollars of it away to the causes the County Commission deems worthy?
There are three places where the county commission provides assistance to outside agencies (specifically non-profit organizations). In the General Fund, 101-56900 – Other Social Cultural and Recreational, the county contributes $65,000 primarily to youth sports programs.
Also in the General Fund, 101-58190 – Other Economic and Community Development, the county contributes $52,500 to the various Chambers of Commerce in the county along with a few other organizations.
Finally, in the general fund, 101-58500 – Contributions to Other Agencies, the county contributes $188,500 to senior citizens centers and other organizations. This is the category where the $300,000 to Empower Me Day Camp was included back in 2017-2018. Also included was a three year commitment to New Leash on Life of $50,000 per year.
For 2017-2018 all of these programs together totaled $601,000 (including the $300,000 to Empower Me Day Camp). For 2018–2019 all of these programs together totaled $275,042. For 2019-2020, all of these programs together are budgeted to spend $306,000.
We have put rules (resolutions) in place to make it more difficult to significantly increase these areas of the budget. First, a request for funding must be able to be correlated to some service the county already provides. In other words, New Leash on Life’s spay and neuter program takes some burden off of our animal control issues. Second, these requests must now come during the budget process. The budget can’t be amended in the middle of the year to accommodate a large contribution to an agency. Finally, I believe a 2/3 vote of the county commissioners is required to increase allocations to these programs.
Philosophically, I completely understand your position on funding nonprofit organizations with tax dollars. However, these programs go back decades and many of these organizations rely on our contributions to make ends meet. It’s easy to say don’t fund senior citizens programs. It’s another thing to actually do it.
Also keep in mind that a 1% raise for teachers costs about $800,000 per year. We are talking about raising teacher salaries by a total of about $5.2 million annually. $300,000 per year in charitable contributions doesn’t begin to cover a $5.2 million annual increase in salaries and benefits.
– Aaron Maynard, County Finance Director
If you would like to discuss county grants further, please contact your commissioner.
I also noticed that some Funds/Departments in the County are paying a “commission” to Mr. Jim Major’s Office of the Trustee. This appears to be a fee that he is charging them for executing his constitutional duty of collecting the taxes due on their behalf.
The Trustee is a constitutional officer in the State of Tennessee. By law, the Trustee’s office charges a fee for most of the transactions they process. This is not optional, it is the law. However, the only part of that fee the Trustee’s office is allowed to keep is the amount needed to make payroll for his office. All other fees charged by the Trustee are turned over to the General Fund in account number 101-45190 Excess Fees – Trustee. As such, these fees are used to operate the general county government, and not the Trustee’s Office.
– Aaron Maynard, County Finance Director
If you would like to learn more about the duties of the County Trustee and the trustee commission, click here. The trustee is the treasurer for the county and the duties for the office are in both the Tennessee Constitution and Tennessee State Code.