July Commission Meeting 2025

Bottom Line 

The Commission voted unanimously (in the end -- there's more to the story) to approve a $95 million operating budget for the county, without increasing the tax rate of $1.61, which is the post-reassessment state-certified rate. 

The bottom line not discussed in the meeting: Most homeowners will see an increase in their tax bill because the percentage of increase in assessment was greater for residential property than for commercial property. Our personal tax bill will likely go up about 40% or so, to give you some idea, and we did appeal our assessment and it was lowered somewhat. Keep in mind that there IS tax relief available for disabled and elderly homeowners; contact the Sullivan County Trustee's Office at (423) 323-6464.

Intro and Opinion

The meeting was long, contentious, and generally not productive. The open public hearing was set for 4pm and very few commissioners showed up for that. Commissioner King, the chair of the budget committee, called this to order and generously tried to let everyone have their say. Unfortunately most residents seemed ignorant of Roberts Rules of Order or the need to follow them. They didn't know how the reassessment worked, what the certified rate meant, how budgets work, or how to civilly and effectively raise a concern or suggest an alternative. I spoke with one man during the break who, before the meeting, had not known how many services he benefits from as a Kingsport resident that the county budget contributes to. Fortunately, he had come to the meeting early enough to speak with several commissioners who explained multiple points to him. Another man spoke during public comment about money "wasted" on roundabouts and sidewalks; during the break, a county employee came to him, introduced herself, and explained that all those projects were paid for with grants and did not come out of the county budget. This ignorance is partially an individual's responsibility to overcome, to be informed and involved, but certainly the county as a whole and the commission in particular need to improve their outreach and the availability of detailed information. Might I suggest quarterly "county halls" for informative presentations and question and answer sessions?

And let me go ahead and say here that it wasn't just the public; most questions posed during the meeting by the commissioners rightly should have been asked of the budget committee during their meetings, and frankly many of the men on the commission don't seem to be able to communicate in a way that doesn't insult the person from whom they are requesting information.

I am not here to advocate for tax increases, but in the end this "conservative" commission voted to deplete their savings by more than one-third in one single year. There is nothing "conservative" or "fiscally responsible" about that. Only Commissioner King had the guts to stand up for the work he and his committee made up of fellow Commissioners Calton, Akard, Crosswhite, Gardner, Ireson, Jones, and Vanover had done on this budget for the past seven months. What happens if everything this year doesn't go as planned? What happens next year? These are the questions that the Commissioners will face in the coming year, and I'll here to watch.

The meeting itself

When the regular meeting was called to order at 6pm, there were only two commissioners absent from the meeting itself, McMurry and Horne. The public comment was more of the same about the property tax rate, plus some meaningful input from volunteers from the Deery Inn and the Holston Heritage Museum requesting help from the county for upkeep and promotion.  Long-time Extension Agent Chris Ramsey introduced Melody Rose who has taken the natural resources position with the Extension Office and may become the director if I understood correctly. 

Item 2

There were only three items of old business on the agenda after normal opening business: Item 1, the tax rate; Item 2, the appropriations to the county; and Item 3, appropriations to nonprofits. Item 1 was moved to the end of the agenda. Sponsor King offered an amendment to Item 2, removing the $800K that was appropriated for NETTA. (NETTA - Northeast Tennessee Tourism Association- is supposed to get half of the hotel-motel tax collected by the county, which should be just under that number for the year. Instead of putting that number in the budget, at the end of each quarter, a motion will have to be made to appropriate that money to NETTA.)  Because the sponsor offered the amendment, it didn't have to be voted on.

Then there was a long back and forth and round and round that had something to do with the new Economic and Community Development position filled by the mayor with the former director of Zoning and Planning. There was an amendment proposed by Commissioner Glover that seemed to fund that position contingent upon the commission approving that position and getting a job description. The amendment was accepted by Sponsor King. Discussion on this continued for about two hours. Commissioner Vanover offered an amendment to move $75K from zoning to mayor's budget to fund the position (which is currently still being paid out of zoning). This amendment failed by a vote of 9 yes to 13 no.

County Attorney Street opined that the commission did not have to ok every position filled by department heads. Glover read the statute that he believed gave the commission that authority but the statute clearly states only Directors and above need the approval of the commission.

The discussion went back to Item 2 with two amendments (the NETTA one and the Glover one). Commissioner Ireson asked County Attorney Street directly if the amendment was a legal one. A recess was called. 

Upon returning to order, County Attorney Street clearly stated that the Glover amendment would harm the county's financial situation and that it was out of order. He further stated that the questions that the commissioners were asking were all legitimate but should have been asked of the budget committee months ago. There was a motion by Commissioner Akard to defer Items 1,2 and 3 until (time to be decided), seconded by Commissioner Slagle, but Commissioner Ward asked Akard to pull the motion because he really wants to go on vacation. Akard withdrew the motion.

The question for Item 2 with two amendments was again called. Chair John Gardner asked Commissioner Glover if he would withdraw his amendment and he said no. Chair Gardner asked Commissioner King if he still accepted that amendment and he said yes. At that point Chairman Gardner ruled the amendment out of order and it was dropped.

Item 2 with one amendment was again taken up. Ireson and Carr offered an amendment of increasing the input from the county's fund balance enough that there would be no tax increase over the certified rate. Deputy Mayor and Director of Finance Larry Bailey opined that using that much of the general fund would not be a good idea, and could pique the interest of the state comptroller. Commissioners Means and Harvey quickly opined that they really didn't want to vote for any tax increase. Ireson withdrew that amendment.

The question for Item 2 as amended (only the original amendment involving NETTA) was called and passed unanimously.

Item 3

Item 3 was offered by Commissioner King with the amendment that the $800K for NETTA be struck, and the vote was unanimous to pass.

Item 1

Item 1 was offered by King with amendment to take the proposed tax rate to $1.66, or .05 over the state certified rate. Ireson offered an amendment to reduce general fund rate to .63377 (from the original .72287 and King's amendment of .68377) which would take the overall tax rate for county down to the state-certified $1.6129 rate, with the balance needed to be drawn from the fund balance. The question was called on the Ireson amendment and it passed with a vote of 20 yes, 1 no, with the no being from Commissioner and Budget Committee Chair King. (There were 22 Commissioners present so I'm not sure what happened to my count.)

The question was called for Item 1 as amended; the vote was unanimous and the budget was passed.

During announcements, Commissioner Glover demanded that the Commissioner Gardner and County Attorney Street provide him in writing their reasoning for his amendment being out of order.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:11pm.

July Commission Work Session - Budget 2025

 The bottom line here is that the full Commission discussed the proposed budget and the proposed property tax increase of $.09 from the equalization rate, and it looks like they will come to the Commission Meeting this week with a proposal for a $.05 rate increase instead. The PUBLIC COMMENT will begin at 4 p.m. on Thursday, July 17.

Where exactly the cuts from the proposed budget are going to come from, I'm not clear on. There is a substantial amount of money budgeted but not spent during the year that is turned back in which can come into play. Also in play is taking any shortfall out of the General Fund.

Several individual commissioners had issues with certain specifics, most of which I honestly don't know enough about to understand. Commissioner Slagle asked why anything was in the budget for NETTA (Northeast Tennessee Tourist Association) when that is supposed to be user fee funded, but my understanding would be that EVERYTHING, all spending, must be addressed within the budget. 

Many commissioners defended the highway department budget and Scott Murray, saying what an excellent job he has done with the department and that the department and the county's roads are in a good place. They also highlighted what bad shape it had been in some years ago, with too many employees and broken down equipment. Commissioner Ireson stated that the sheriff's department had also helped to hold their budget request down by not hiring employees needed for the new jail before October.

There was an interesting exchange among Commissioners Cross, Vanover, and Locke about first responders. Again, I'm not intimately familiar with all this, but it seems that Sullivan County contributes an equal fixed amount to each station. The cities pay the first responders in the cities, and the cities contribute to the budgets of those stations. The county stations are 501-C3s: their budgets are smaller, and they are not county employees. The proposed budget provides additional funding to raise these folks' pay. Commissioner Cross had worked on a five-year plan that equalized the funding among the stations and objected to this no longer being equal. Vanover and Locke held the position that the increase in funding was only for payroll for these stations and didn't impact the 5 year plan. Vanover said, "$12/hr. is not a living wage."

Another major discussion was about employee pay raises. All commissioners except Cheryl Harvey were in favor of providing the 5% raise to all county employees that was in the proposed budget, citing retention, skill, and increased cost of living. Commissioner Harvey repeatedly questioned whether this was fair to taxpayers, since the Consumer Price Index has not increased that much, and increases in health insurance costs would also not eat up all that pay raise. Commissioner Vanover observed that the county couldn't find employees several years ago, but doesn't have that problem now because of the wage increase. Commissioner Ward pointed out that county employees don't live in gated communities as Commissioner Harvey does.

Another point that was made throughout the meeting was that on a tighter budget, no one should be bringing items to the commission during the year that require additional funding. New EMS stations and recycling centers were needed, but money for those things won't be in this budget. Commissioner Akard commented that he didn't want to see the county need to borrow money to cover the budget as was needed in 2015, and Commissioner King opined that the budget and the county would "be ok if everything goes well." Commissioner Glover commented that the school system hadn't asked for anything this budget year, but they would be coming in the future.

Before adjournment, Commissioner Gardner expressed his appreciation for the tone of the meeting, despite its difficult subject matter.

June Commission Meeting 2025

The ONE thing you need to know from this month's Sullivan County Commission meeting is that on July 10 they are having a work session on the proposed budget at 6 pm in the old courthouse in Blountville. Reassessment was done this year; most residential property was assessed significantly higher; residential assessments went up much more percentage-wise than commercial assessments; and all of this means that our property taxes will be increasing. And that is with the equalization rate of $1.61: The currently proposed tax rate to meet the budget is $1.70.

During the meeting, Commissioner King (chair of the budget committee) stated that the biggest increases were for the jail/sheriff's department and the highway department, and that there isn't much anyone can do about those amounts: most of that is mandated.  The increase in the highway department is largely the result of decreased input from the state. I have since spoken with Commissioner King and also done some research, and one reason for the decrease from the state is that the amount collected from the gas tax is down.  The last numbers available online are from 2021, so there is a grain of salt there since that would still be impacted by the pandemic, but since Commissioner King says that's still a thing, perhaps he has a point that increased fuel efficiency and electric vehicles have had this effect. However, the increased fee for electric and hybrid cars is supposed to offset this (there is no data on that that I can find). I'm trying to determine if there is also less ARPA (America Rescue Plan Act) money.

You can review the entire proposed budget in the June meeting minutes here, starting on page 111.

As you can tell from how many pages those minutes are, it was a busy meeting, other than just the budget, which wasn't even talked about. Normal business included appointments to the Building Commission, to the Utility District Commission, bonds for school personnel, and voting for a new Constable for District 6 (Bloomingdale). Dr. Gary Mayes was recognized with a day proclaimed in his honor upon his retirement from leading the Health Department for nearly 25 years. Minutes were approved, notaries voted on, and public comment was held.

The consent agenda, requiring unanimous consent to pass, was huge: Items 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,&13. I believe these were mostly financial housekeeping things that were required to square several things that had already been spent, primarily relating to schools. Items 10-13 were not originally on the consent agenda, and all the way at the very end of the meeting, Commissioner Glover made a motion to rescind the passage of Item 11, which had to do with increasing the mineral severance tax to $.20 per ton (this affects sand, gravel, sandstone, chert, and limestone). This motion did not pass, but it illustrated that so much business at one meeting is very confusing and difficult to fathom through even for those very familiar with the whole process. There were, in total, 23 Items on the agenda. Items 20, 21, and 22 were the budget, which was only passed out for information with no discussion.  All the other items on the agenda were voted on and passed. Again, you can read them all in the minutes here. 

The most obviously significant item on the agenda, other than introducing the budget, was Old Business, Item 1, which purchased, with the City of Bristol, TN, a building on Midway in which Sullivan County will open a Bristol office of the Health Department.

See you on the 10th!