Fore Note: The News Herald story below was published before the county attorney/CTAS opinions were released. The opinions were that the commissioner's misstatement is not relevant and the vote as passed is valid with no other actions needed.

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Property tax vote ‘slip of the tongue’ discussed at the county workshop

Gecca J. G. Godwin news-herald.net

At the first Loudon County Commission workshop since a 25-cent property tax hike was approved, that topic continued to be addressed by locals and officials.

The resolution to raise the county property tax rate was approved by a 6-4 County Commission vote during a June 24 budget adoption meeting. The increase was made in order to fund a $115 million building program for a new school and other projects at existing schools in the county’s school system.

During the July 15 workshop, which is essentially a working session held ahead of a Commission meeting, Commissioner Rosemary Quillen said she had a few concerns about the vote and the tax levy itself.

“We had a conflict of interest, we didn’t have a conflict of interest, we did have one. That all became very, very confusing. I know it was very chaotic,” Quillen said, referring to a question that arose about money Commissioner Bill Geames has received from providing lawn care to a school.

The conflict of interest question caused a revote to be taken, but did not change the outcome. The county’s attorney, Robert L. Bowman, later advised that he hadn’t been provided with evidence that would indicate a conflict of interest.

“But we gotta get this stuff right. And I hope it was right. It’s very confusing to watch (the recording) and to try to decipher,” she said. “But what I did catch, and what a lot of people in the community did catch, was the motion that was made and that was approved is different than what this signed resolution is.”

When Commissioner Gary Whitfield made the motion to amend the tax levy resolution, he proposed “to change the combined property tax rate to 1.7683 on each $100,000 of taxable property outside the limits of the Lenoir City.” However, the text on the resolution — and what he meant to say — was “on each $100.00 of taxable property.” Not $100,000.

During the July 15 workshop, Whitfield took responsibility for the error.

“There is no doubt that I made a mistake in my wording in the motion to fix the tax rate.

“No doubt,” he said. “I will make the motion to correct that when we approve the minutes on our August 5th meeting.”

Quillen reiterated that it needed to get fixed, so that the county doesn’t go bankrupt over what was literally approved.

“Yeah, nobody thought that that was what it was,” Commissioner Chase Randolph said.

“I know what nobody thought, but I know what we approved. And I know what got signed,” Quillen said, while Randolph said that Whitfield just said it was going to be fixed. “I know they’re ready to send out the tax records and we’ve got to fix this. We’ve got to do better with this.”

The discrepancy was mentioned by resident Blake Moore during public comments at the start of the workshop.

“That is a monumental decision to have been made without exhaustively vetting the plan. Words matter because the motion that was made to increase the tax levy to $1.7683 on each $100,000 of assessed value instead of on each $100 of assessed value means that our county may be potentially bankrupt in about a year,” he said. “It has been suggested that this was just a slip of the tongue and that everyone knew what he meant, but the minutes and the past motion do not match, and again, words matter.”

Resident Gary Busch also raised questions concerning whether the budgeting process was followed improperly.

In related news, the county budget committee earlier that same day approved the following agenda item: “Consideration of approval of a resolution to issue an Rural School Interfund Capital Outlay Note for estimated Bidding and Fire Marshal fess for the New School, Philadelphia Elem., Greenback Aux Gym, and Greenback Football Stadium projects.”

That resolution is to be put before the Commission during the Aug. 5 meeting.