Directors propose budget, tax rate

By Melinda L. Lucas

After a combination of working through line items and meeting in closed sessions about salaries for close to three hours in a special session on Monday night, members of the Shackelford County Hospital District’s board of directors ended up with a proposed budget of $2,803,020 based on the “no-new-revenue” (NNR) rate of 20.67 cents. Last year’s proposed budget was $2,913,280.

The proposed tax rate, which is a little higher than last year’s 20.05-cent rate, is expected to generate about $1,134,300.

The NNR rate is the number needed to raise the same amount to total tax dollars as the previous year based on the same property.

After a start time of 6:00 p.m. on Monday, the directors spent about an hour going through line items in the budget prepared by district secretary Regina Whitt and EMS director Tina Ulbrich, then closed the meeting for employee evaluations and discussion about salary amounts for several employees.

The only action taken  after the 1-1/2 hour executive session, was a motion by Myra Hise to make salary changes as proposed.

According to board vice president Mike Folsom, the directors discussed compensations for district employees who have taken on extra duties in the absence of an administrator, as well as possibly giving across-the-board raises effective in January. That decision will be made later, he said.

With a short discussion at the end of the session, the board approved the clinic budget proposal of $827,000.

Folsom voiced the motions for both proposed budgets and for the proposed tax rate.