County works to keep tax increase to 1 mill

The Marion County Board of Commissioners put in a third long meeting for its payday session Friday in an attempt to avoid more than a one-mill property tax increase in the 2012 budget.

Scot Loyd, budget accountant, spent hours with the commissioners as they made cuts and adjustments to initial increases of as much as four mills.

The final cut appeared to come with the rolling purchase of a new ambulance, valued at about $130,000, into the following year.

But County Clerk Carol Maggard said no report of the budget is final until the commissioners meet with Loyd again Aug. 8.

Maggard reported the payday pay-out figure at just over $1.033 million. It was higher than average, she said, because of quarterly shares of property tax income paid out to other governmental entities in the county.

Sales tax gathered in May, received by the state in June, and dispersed to the counties in July, was $51,944 for Marion County, she said.

She said this puts the county at $6,260 more for the year compared to the same time last year. This was without extra collection for jail funding, which wasn?t added to county taxes until July 1.

County Treasurer Jeannine Bateman reported the county has $15.171 million in county banks earning a total of $39,247 in interest for the year as of June 30 at a current rate of $6,541 a month.

The money is at the following county banks: Central National-Marion, Cottonwood Valley, Emprise, Hillsboro State, Marion National, Peabody State, Pilsen State and Tampa State.

Cardie Oil Inc. of Tampa was awarded a road and bridge transport fuel bid for $27,300 over a competitive bid of $27,358 from Cooperative Grain & Supply at Hillsboro.

The award was split on area fuel bids, with Cardie taking the bid for areas 1 and 2 at $9,726, and CG&S taking the bid at $11,939 for areas 3 and 4.

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