County Commission members have given up the fight for the annual $900,000 in discretionary funds.
Commission Chairman Chester Bankston said there was not enough money available after requests from a number of agencies and departments were cut to balance the budget without a tax increase.
Commissioner Sabrena Smedley said the fact that commissioners can no longer allot the discretionary funds to school projects "was a game changer."
The commission on Wednesday unanimously passed a $679.6 million balanced budget submitted by County Mayor Jim Coppinger that once again did not include the $100,000 each for the nine commissioners.
The commissioners last year took that amount out of the fund balance and continued with the practice of each commissioner having $100,000 each to spend as they wished.
County Mayor Coppinger last year vetoed the budget after the commissioners put back in the discretionary funds. However, the commission voted to override his veto.
Two commissioners - Joe Graham and Marty Haynes - opted not to spend their $100,000 in discretionary funds.
This is the sixth consecutive year that County Mayor Coppinger has presented a no tax increase budget.
County Mayor Coppinger said, “We continue to fund our operations through growth, I am proud to again present a budget to taxpayers that meets additional government, education and public safety needs through the estimated 2% growth in revenues we anticipate receiving over the next 12 months.
“This is what taxpayers expect, a fiscally conservative approach to good government. This is what we have delivered for the sixth year in a row, without a tax increase while maintaining our valued AAA bond rating from three top rating agencies. We have promised our residents good government and this budget is a reflection of that promise.”
He said the balanced budget was accomplished despite a $5.2 million dollar increase in health insurance costs for the general fund. He said, “Despite this increase in health insurance costs, we were able to absorb the increase because of our cost control efforts in several areas and larger than anticipated participation of our employees who used our clinic, pharmacy and fitness center.”
The budget increased $14.2 million over the previous year. Most of the increase ($12 million) is for education. Officials said 62 percent of Hamilton County’s total budget will go to the $417.7 million dollar funding of the education system.
- $23.2 million, which is 11 percent of the general fund budget, will go to health services and $90.8 million (14 percent) will be directed to public safety, which includes the Sheriff’s Department, Emergency Management, Emergency Medical Services and volunteer fire departments. The Sheriff’s Department budget is $33.5 million - a 5.9 percent budget increase.
- $27 million will go to fund the county’s various constitutional offices - a 7.9 percent increase over the previous fiscal budget.
The budget also contains a slight increase of 0.6 percent percent for supported agencies. Those agencies include the City-County Planning Agency, the Air Pollution Control Bureau, the Humane Educational Society, the Urban League and Erlanger Health System.