By NICOLE CARTRETTE
Staff Writer

It’s not clear what kind of tax increase Columbus County residents may face soon.

The county’s fund balance is too low to dip into to balance the fiscal 2007-08 budget.

“We don’t have a fund balance to go into,” County Manager Varner said Wednesday.

The fund balance has dwindled for the last seven years and earlier this year the N.C. Local Government Commission (LGC) sent the county a letter warning that the fund balance was below that of similar-sized counties.

Varner was reluctant to discuss a possible tax hike. “I don’t know yet on a tax rate; I’m not in a position to make that call right now,” Varner said. “I’ll say this – we started cutting back on expenses back in February and when department heads presented their budget requests I then asked them to cut back again.

“It’s very, very lean – you’ll see that,” Varner added.

One thing the public can expect to see is a budget that is easier to understand and more in line with numbers used statewide and recommended by the LGC to identify account types, he said.

“In the past it was really jumbled up and people created their own numbers,” Varner said of past budgets.

Varner said the budget would take on a different format as well, with revenue information preceding expenditures.

Each department’s financial data will show revenue and expenses.

Varner gave Interim Finance Director Leo Hunt the credit for taking on the “tedious job” of reassigning account numbers and changing the layout of the budget.

The budget proposal could be ready as early as today. “We hope to have it done by Monday but we’ve got to make sure the numbers are right,” Varner said Wednesday.

Last May and June, the county found itself in what one commissioner called “a budget nightmare.” Varner said the county books had not been reconciled since September 2005. Commissioners were left to guess what the undesignated fund balance was after dipping into it for roughly $2.8 million to balance the more than $74 million budget (a $4 million increase).

Water rates in two districts, solid waste fees, and taxes were increased with passage of the 2006-07 budget. Commissioners voted 6 to 1 to increase property taxes by 3.5 cents per $100 value.

This brought the county’s tax rate up to its current 76.5 cents per $100 value.