May 31, 2024
By: Dwayne Page
Since 1968, the City of Smithville, by agreement with the county, has turned over a greater share of its local option sales tax collections to the county’s education local purpose tax fund to help pay for school building construction/debt service obligations and yearly school operation. Officials say the other towns in the county, Liberty, Dowelltown, and Alexandria are also included in that agreement.
According to officials, the City of Smithville and the other towns were already legally obligated to turn over to the county 50% of their local option sales tax collections for education purposes, but for almost 56 years under an interlocal agreement, they have been contributing 66 and 2/3%.
In 2007, the county and cities extended the agreement by 30 years. That was 17 years ago and with this extension set to expire in 13 years (2037) the county commission is interested in extending the deal again by another 30 years to the year 2067.
During Thursday night’s monthly meeting, the commission and county mayor announced plans, upon the recommendation of the government services committee, to prepare a resolution to be adopted next month seeking an extension of the agreement with the four cities which will then be presented to their mayors and boards of aldermen for passage.
Without such a long-range commitment from the cities, officials say the county is handicapped in doing long range planning for new school construction without raising the property tax. The county, they say, must be able to count on that extra sales tax revenue coming in to support debt service obligations for such school projects. The county also contributes $1,540,000 annually from the local purpose (sales tax) fund for general purpose school operation which could make renewal of the sales tax agreement even more important. Under the state’s maintenance of effort law, officials say schools have to be funded by the county, at least with the same amount of local dollars from year to year. In other words, the county may increase funding each year for schools, but it cannot cut funding.
In other business, County Mayor Matt Adcock announced that he has appointed Brian Reed to succeed James Goff as the Solid Waste Director. Goff recently resigned. The county commission confirmed the appointment. County Mayor Adcock said Reed’s career background is in the solid waste management field. He previously served as general manager for the Southern Central operation and more recently has worked for the Capital Waste company. According to Adcock, Reed has a degree in business administration, and he has a commercial driver license.
The commission adopted a salary exempt policy, upon the recommendation of the government services committee, which essentially provides that salaried county department heads are not to accrue overtime pay.
Members to the DeKalb County Equalization Board were reappointed by the County Commission including Mitchell Bowman, Jimmy Midgett, Doyle Evans, Joel Hooker, and Jimmy Goad. Tim Bradford will be an alternate.
The commission also adopted a resolution, upon the recommendation of the government services committee, establishing a new DeKalb County Beer Board to be made up of five county commissioners. The board will have the authority to approve or deny applications for beer permits based on criteria established in policies set by the county commission, such as distance requirements, etc. Beer board members are to be paid per meeting the same as present-day or current compensation for county commission committee meetings.
Several months ago, the commission abolished the seven-member citizen beer board at the suggestion of County Mayor Adcock and made the entire 14-member county commission the beer board.
Since then, the county mayor and commission have decided that a five-member beer board would function better.
According to the resolution as adopted Thursday night, County Mayor Adcock will appoint five county commissioners including a chairman, vice chairman, and secretary to serve on the beer board in September each year with confirmation by the county commission. The terms are for one year. The members will be up for reappointment each September.
The resolution calls for the county mayor to provide distant measurements to the board by request of the beer board chairman. The county clerk shall perform the clerical duties of overseeing the process of applications, accepting payment, and forwarding that information to the chairman of the beer board. The county clerk shall also oversee the background check process if the beer board policies require it and then forward results of the background check to the beer board chairman.
The chairman of the beer board will be responsible for setting the meeting date, time, and place.
The county commission will be responsible for developing and maintaining a beer board policy that will provide requirements of the beer board that have not been addressed in the resolution.