Dovell Pleads Guilty to Forgery

June 9, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

A man recently charged with forgery has already been sentenced in criminal court.

23-year-old Nathan Dovell of Cookeville appeared in court Tuesday, June 4 and entered a plea to forgery. He received a two-year sentence all suspended to supervised probation. He has requested judicial diversion and must make restitution to the victim. Dovell was given jail credit from May 17 to June 4.

Alexandria Police Chief Travis Bryant said that on May 17, police were dispatched to Wilson Bank & Trust in Alexandria where, according to bank employees, Dovell had entered the bank with a forged check and had attempted to cash it. Police also learned from bank staff that Dovell had just cashed another check in the same amount at the Smithville bank location earlier that day.

Meanwhile 22-year-old Tanner Cole Myers entered a plea to a first offense of driving under the influence and received a sentence of 11 months and 29 days on supervised probation after serving 48 hours. He was fined $350 and will lose his driver license for one year. Myers must forfeit a weapon. He must complete DUI school and undergo an alcohol and drug assessment. An interlock device is required on his vehicle. Myers’ sentence is to run concurrently with a Wilson County case against him. He was given two days of jail credit.

June 7, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

A public referendum on a wheel tax!

During Thursday night’s meeting, the county budget committee voted 5-0 to recommend to the full county commission that a resolution be adopted to have a public referendum on the ballot in the November election asking DeKalb County voters if they would support a $100 wheel tax for debt service to fund construction of a judicial center/jail. If approved by the voters, budget committee members say funds from the wheel tax could help offset what a proposed 51 cent property tax increase would generate in the meantime for debt service and allow the county to eventually scale back the size of that tax hike for debt service down to perhaps as low as 19 cents after a period a time when the wheel tax proceeds start coming in.

On Tuesday night, the budget committee voted to ask the county commission to establish an overall property tax levy of $2.61 cents per $100 of assessed value when the proposed consolidated budget is up for adoption on June 24. That’s a 61-cent hike from the current tax levy of $2.00 per $100 of assessed value. A year ago, the rate was $1.7308 cents.

Fifty-one cents of the proposed tax increase would go to fund debt service for a judicial center/jail while the remaining 10 cent increase would be allocated to schools to help fund the proposed new school budget which includes pay raises for certified personnel and support staff.

Budget committee member Glynn Merriman, who on Tuesday night voted for the $2.61 tax levy recommendation including a 51-cent increase for debt service, said Thursday night that he has struggled with that decision, and he expressed it in a prepared statement to the committee.

“I have been praying about this budget fervently and I hope that each of you has as well,” said Merriman. “I don’t take this lightly. I know none of the commissioners wanted this on their plate but yet here we are. Our backs are against the wall on this”.

“I am not for putting the tax burden just on property owners,” said Merriman. “I think we need to step back and rethink what we are doing and how this will affect so many people who are already struggling to stay afloat”.

Merriman gave his own personal example of how back-to-back tax increases would affect property owners.

“In 2022 my property taxes at the rate of $1.7308 was $1,628. In 2023 at the rate of $2.000, it was $1,881 which is a difference of $253. If we pass the $2.61 tax levy it will be $2,455 which is $827 more since 2022. This is only one of my properties that I am referring to. This does not include my business which I pay county and city taxes plus the county and city business tax,” he explained.

Merriman said constituents he has talked to favor a wheel tax over a large property tax hike because with a wheel tax, more people share the tax burden.

“Even if you are a renter, your rent will go up with a tax increase because the property owner will pass that along to you,” said Merriman. “We need to have a $100 wheel tax which would average $8.34 per month per vehicle and would generate about $2 million in revenue per year. If we ear mark it only for the judicial center then when its paid off, we could drop the wheel tax without a major property tax increase,” said Merriman.

If more people understood the tax options, Merriman said the wheel tax referendum might have a better chance to pass.

“We need to get this message out to the property owners of the county. It is very important that if you (property owners) don’t want this tax burden just on your property then please help us by passing a wheel tax so that everyone can contribute,” said Merriman.

If the proposed $2.61 tax rate is enacted by the county commission, the total tax levy for debt service would be 0.6160 cents, up 51 cents from the current rate of 0.1060 cents. The proposed 51 cent increase would generate $3,162,000 in new revenue to fund the debt on the judicial center/jail. A $100 wheel tax would raise approximately $2 million per year. If applied to debt service, wheel tax revenue would reduce the amount of additional property tax proceeds needed to $1,162,000 requiring only a 19-cent tax increase instead of 51 cents for the debt service fund. However, until wheel tax funds started coming in, the additional 51 cents would have to remain in place.

County Mayor Matt Adcock said he had already planned to include on the June monthly meeting agenda that the county commission take action on a resolution calling for a public referendum on at least a $50 wheel tax during the November election.

Meanwhile, due to rate hikes and mandates of the Affordable Care Act the county is budgeting an increase in the amount it pays toward health insurance for employees under its group plan. The county budget committee has approved an increase from $450 to $550 in the amount the county pays to meet the federal mandate in covering 64 county employees enrolled in the plan. The county budgets for all 90 employees in case others wish to join the plan later in the year.

The budget committee also included pay raises for truck drivers with CDL licenses working for the solid waste department. The pay rate will go from the current $15 to $20 per hour. Pay for laborers and welders will increase from $12 to $14 per hour. Recently the solid waste department has been shorthanded due to employees who have been sick or who have quit.

The budget committee concluded its business for the year Thursday night by adopting the consolidated budget for all county departments for the 2024-25 fiscal year to be presented for passage by the county commission during its next monthly meeting on June 24 at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Mike Foster Multi-Purpose Center.

If approved by the full county commission, the new $2.61 property tax rate levy would be divided as follows:

County General: $1.2583

Highway/Public Works: $0.0326 cents

General Capital Projects: $0.0733 cents

Debt Service: $0.6160 cents (an increase of 51 cents from the current debt service tax levy of $0.1060)

General Purpose Schools: $0.6298 (an increase of 10 cents from the current General Purpose Schools tax levy of $0.5298 cents)

TOTAL PROPOSED COUNTY TAX LEVY: $2.61 per $100 of assessed value which is up from the current tax levy of $2.00 per $100 of assessed value.

During the public comment period Thursday night, Jerry Adcock, a former county commissioner, spoke out against the proposed tax increase.

“Smithville had a population a couple of years ago at 5,059 and an average household income of $30,526. The poverty rate in Smithville is 34.8% and you guys are doing a property tax on these people,” said Adcock

“You (Merriman) say a wheel tax. I don’t know who or how many you have talked to, but I guarantee there is not a person that wants a wheel tax if you go out there and really talk to them. Wheel taxes never die. And when you say we’ll raise the property tax that gets the renters. The renters are already going to be hit because when the man (landlord) has to pay a property tax increase he is going to charge his renters for the increase. He will not absorb that himself,” he explained.

Adcock suggested that there could be another means of raising revenue.

“Four years ago, I asked the county when we were getting all that ARP money to put radars in all these police cars. Did you know that DeKalb County could raise money for a building fund? I don’t know how much money (could be raised) from the tickets they give (issue), maybe 5, 10, or 15 dollars from the sheriff’s department, city police, and highway patrol. Everybody argued with me on putting more radars in police cars at that time. We bought four radars with that money. What has that done for our building fund? Zero,” said Adcock.

June 7, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

The DeKalb County Board of Education may have to cough up more money on its own to fully fund its proposed pay raises for school employees.

During Thursday night’s meeting, the budget committee vote 4-1 to take back a portion of what it had voted on Tuesday night to give schools in new local money for the 2024-25 fiscal year subject to final approval of the full county commission. Voting in favor were Chairman Jeff Barnes, and members Glynn Merriman, Tom Chandler, and Sabrina Farler. Member Tony (Cully) Culwell voted against the move. Two members, Mathias Anderson and Susannah Cripps were absent

While the proposed 10 cent property tax increase for schools as recommended by the budget committee Tuesday night was left in place, which would generate $620,000 in new money for schools, the committee basically rescinded the move it made Tuesday allocating schools another $370,000 from the local purpose (sales tax) fund.

Budget committee member Glynn Merriman, who made the motion, said his reason was essentially that he believes the school board still has a healthy fund balance or reserves of up to $10 million from which the proposed pay raises could be funded for at least one year and that the board of education had not asked for any specific amount of new local money in its proposed budget. Since the local purpose (sales tax) fund is also used partly to support school debt service, Merriman said that the $370,000 should be left in that account to go toward future planning of a school building program.

Schools already get an annual contribution from the county’s local purpose fund of $1,540,000 for yearly school budget operation. The extra $370,000 would have put the annual contribution from the local purpose (sales tax) fund for schools at $1,910,000. Even with the added funds of $620,000 from the proposed 10 cent tax increase, the school budget would apparently still be about $1.1 million short of fully funding the $1.72 million cost of the pay raises with matching benefits as presented to the budget committee last week by Director of Schools Patrick Cripps. However, the difference could possibly be made up from the school budget’s reserves.

According to the proposed school budget, as adopted by the board of education last month, a $2,000 pay increase would go to school employees with up to 9 years of service (155 employees); $5,000 for those with 10-19 years (104 employees); and $6,000 to staff with 20 or more years (108 employees).

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