The Athens Clarke County Mayor and Commission heard a budget update from county manager Blaine Williams yesterday afternoon. Jessica Wurst says Clarke County officials are optimistic about the county's revenue, even after the pandemic.
Briefing Commissioners as they continue to work on the budget for the 2022 fiscal year, Williams said that even with the pandemic, sales taxes were better than expected.
"With respect to sales taxes, over the last 12 months, it's been fairly flat. It does represent FY22 a $1 million increase over last year's budget, and our finance staff was looking into a crystal ball of a pandemic we have not experienced before. I do think that the media did say that we had particularly rosy projections, but I'm proud to say that they were very close to being on the mark. Sales taxes were actually a little better than we thought in last year's budget. So, while they were flat from last year to this year, the difference between this year's budget and last year's budget is about a $1 million increase, so that's helpful. "
For this year, Williams expects the county to generate about $8 million from property taxes, $1 million from sales taxes, and $800K from other taxes.
The full budget presentation can be found on the Athens Clarke County YouTube channel.