Fayette

County's proposed $57.5 million budget for fiscal

2001 anticipates a property tax increase of 1.5

mills, costing the owner of a $200,000 home about

$106.50 more in taxes.

"That's

as near as I can guess until we sell the bonds

[for construction of a new jail and courthouse]

and we see the tax digest," said Emory

McHugh, director of the county Finance

Department.

County

commissioners in coming weeks will schedule a

series of meetings to dig into the proposed

budget.

As

proposed, the budget is up 7.6 percent from the

FY2000 budget of $53.4 million.

Debt

service on the judicial complex is projected at

$4.25 million, McHugh said, accounting for all of

the projected tax increase. "It's expensive

keeping those prisoners in jail," he said.

County

officials soon will sell $60 million in bonds for

the project, and hope to collect impact fees to

pay about $1 million of the debt service. It will

be at least three or four months before the fees

will begin to roll in, though, officials

estimate.

As

always, public safety will absorb the lion's

share of the $37 million general fund portion of

the budget, at a proposed $13 million, up 6.5

percent from this year's $12.2 million, with

public works coming in second at $7.8 million, a

reduction of 11 percent from $8.8 million in

FY2000.

Public

works figures fluctuate a great deal, said

McHugh, as uncompleted projects from one year are

rolled over into the next year's budget.

The

budget is available to the public at the County

Administrative Complex, 140 Stonewall Ave.,

Fayetteville.

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