The proposed county budget includes $6.2 million for employee salaries.

County Mayor Jim Coppinger said it would raise all county employees to an acceptable minimum salary level and help with employee hiring and retention.

Adjusting the pay plan that includes periodic steps would be $1.1 million.

A five percent across-the-board pay increase for employees would be $5 million.

The budget also includes $500,000 to help bring up the pay of Sheriff's Department employees. In addition, Sheriff Jim Hammond earlier asked the County Commission for a $5 million budget increase, including $4.6 million to bolster officer and jailer salaries.

He said the goal is to raise patrol officer starting salaries from $35,000 to $39,000 and jailer starting pay from $32,000 to over $34,000. He said his department trains patrol and correctional officers, then they take better-paying jobs with other departments.

County Mayor Coppinger said the proposed budget would add 72 new county employees, though he said that number will be trimmed as the budget is fine tuned. There currently are 1,799 county employees. The new number would be 1,871.

The average salary of a full-time county employee is $45,122 and the median salary is $39.671.

Officials said county employees got no raise in fiscal year 2014, 2.5 percent in 2015, 1.5 percent in 2016 (with floor of $750), 2.5 percent in 2017 (with floor of $1,250), and 1.5 percent in 2018 (with floor of $750).

The budget includes going from 80 to 87 employees in the highway department, which is moving away from hiring part-time employees due to the difficulty of keeping them.

In the ambulance service, it is proposed to add 37 employees by moving from shifts of 24 hours and then 48 hours off to 24 hours and 72 hours off and to avoid paying so much overtime. Officials said it has been difficult to hire employees to work the tighter shifts - especially as the call volume increases. It says overtime would be minimal in the new setup.

It also includes additional money for the volunteer fire departments based on a new formula. It would be based on coverage areas and the value of property covered. For the smallest department (Flat Top Mountain) the county allotment would go from $15,000 to $50,000.

County general government budget requests are up from $313.6 million to $333.6 million.

The county's total projected revenue is set to rise by $8 million to $260.8 million. But total expenditure requests are $276 million - up $23.2 million. Property tax revenue is expected to rise by $3.9 million, the sales tax by $1.2 million and interest income by $824,000.

Major budget increases are listed as $350,000 for the Criminal Court clerk, $145,000 for the District Attorney, $125,000 for Drug Court (Sessions), $120,000 for General Sessions Court, $472,000 for Mental Health Court and a $175,000 VOCA grant for Mental Health Court.

Supported agencies are asking an increase of $392,000 to $4.89 million. Major increases include ArtsBuild $150,000, CARTA $100,000 and the Enterprise Center $100,000.

There will be no increase in health insurance costs and a minor increase in pension costs.

The county fund balance would remain at about the same $100 million.

County Mayor Coppinger and School Supt. Bryan Johnson have met with County School Board members and most County Commission on the possibility of a 49-cent property tax.



It would include 34 cents for the county schools and 15 cents for county general government.