Hospital board proposes NNR tax rate, budget
By Melinda L. Lucas
After working through line items for all four divisions of the Shackelford County Hospital District in a special session on Wednesday, Aug. 24, board members ended up with a proposed budget based on the “no-new-revenue” (NNR) rate of 19.24 cents.
A $3,993,192 budget proposal, combining expenditures for the district administration, EMS, health clinic, and pharmacy, was approved on a motion by Myra Hise, seconded by Mary Beth Jones, with the stipulation that the number could possibly change before adoption.
Kayla Herron and board president Jo Ann Estridge, who were the only other directors present at the time of the vote, were also in favor of the motion.
Jason Price attended for a good portion of the meeting, but had to leave before the vote was taken.
The next day, it was discovered that line items in each one of the separate budgets had been inadventently omitted, and district administrator Brandi Green, along with district secretary Regina Whitt, were working to correct the numbers.
At press time, it was not known how much difference there was in the original budget proposal and the new total, or whether there would be a special meeting before the budget hearing and expected adoption on Monday, Sept. 19.
Green said that the finalized budget will be available for review during the required period before it is adopted.
It is higher than last year’s adopted budget of $3,649,970, primarily due to salary increases, fuel costs, insurance increases, and cost of drugs.
The NNR tax rate proposal will not be changed, according to Green. The 19.24-cent rate, which is lower than last year’s rate of 20.67 cents because of higher valuations, is calculated to generate $1,186,733.
The NNR rate is the number needed to raise the same amount of total tax dollars as the previous year based on the same property.
Chief appraiser Clayton Snyder explained at the beginning of the session that there had been a countywide 7.87 percent increase in net taxable value.
