County tax funds for Tellico Vil

During a Feb. 20 meeting of the Tellico Village Property Owners Association board of directors, the question of future assessment fees was raised.

Members of the audience expressed concerns that continuing to increase monthly assessments at the current rate could result in residents moving out and dissuade others from moving in.

“I would love to give you an answer, but I can’t right now because, No. 1, I don’t have all the information I need as to what it’s going to take to maintain these roads for the next 15 or 20 years,” Bruce Johnson, POA board president, said. “We’re working on that. … I don’t know what to tell you about it because we’re doing our sewage study to see if the current infrastructure that we have now is going to satisfy our sewer needs. … So when I know all that information I’ll be able to come and tell you that here’s what our plan is for the assessments.”

Johnson did raise the idea of pursuing more funds from county and state government for the Village to possibly keep assessments flat.

“That could all change in a heartbeat if the county could come back and say, ‘Yeah, you give us $8 million a year, we’ll give you a couple million back.’ That would all change, but don’t bet on it,” Johnson said. “That could also change if the state came and said, ‘We love you, Tellico Village. Here, we’re going to give you this break.’ There’s things that we’re working on, but I can’t promise you they’ll happen yet.”

Johnson said one of the goals of the POA for 2019 is to build a better working relationship with local governments. He noted a lack of representation compared to the amount of property tax paid by Tellico Village residents.

Henry Cullen, who serves as Tellico Village’s representative on Loudon County Commission, believes the county is hamstrung in many ways.

“The POA says they don’t get anything back, and yes they pay $7.4 million in taxes, which is 20 some odd percent of the total, but the issue comes down to Tellico Village is a private subdivision in the unincorporated part of Loudon County. Therefore, it is illegal to give public funds to a private entity like Tellico Village.”

Johnson acknowledged that hurdle in the Feb. 20 meeting but noted it is being worked on at the state level.

However, if changes were made to open up the ability to give money to entities like the Tellico Village POA, it would impact others as well.

“If somebody lives in WindRiver, Rarity Bay, Avalon — what are we going to do for them?” Cullen said. The issue of Tellico Village’s status as a 501(c)(4) organization is not the only hurdle. “If you want the roads taken care of, they have to be 24 feet wide, curbing on both sides, storm drains and there has to be a foot of base,” Cullen said. “... To do all the roads in the Village and bring them up to standard would cost millions. … So you see there’s a lot of issues there.”

Cullen said he would like to be able to do more for Tellico Village, but doesn’t believe the county has many options. He did point to some areas where the county has made contributions, including money provided to pay the salary of the librarian at The Public Library at Tellico Village, as well as support of Tellico Village Volunteer Fire Department and several nonprofit agencies supported by Villagers.

Mike Colacone, a POA board member, urged patience from Village residents as the organization considers income options moving forward.

“We’re going in the right direction,” Colacone said during the meeting. “It doesn’t happen overnight. … It does take some time. Reserve studies, we’re looking at those kind of things. So we’re concerned about the finances as well as you are. … We do have a number of people who are trying to work on new ideas to bring in more revenue and I do agree that what you do to one side to bring in more revenue, you need to do to the other side and try to reduce as much cost as we can without disrupting services. We’re trying to do that. I think we’re working toward that. Again, it just takes time.”