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TYLER \u2014 Smith County Commissioners are in the middle of a challenging planning process for the 2027 budget and many residents have voiced confusion surrounding the Reserve Fund\u2019s purpose and why it\u2019s not being used for salary increases for county employees. \u201cThey think because we\u2019ve got millions of dollars in this reserve fund that we can just take that and give raises and hire new people,\u201d Smith County Judge Neal Franklin said.<\/p>\n
Judge Franklin explained the Reserve Fund is a savings account used for emergencies, capital expenses and one-time purchases. The fund gets its money from unspent tax revenue and operating in a surplus<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019d be like you want to go and get a mortgage on a house, but paying with your savings account, it\u2019s going to run out\u201d, Judge Franklin illustrated. <\/p>\n
In the proposed 2027 budget, there is a Cost-of-Living raise for all county employees, including the Sheriff\u2019s office, which is asking for $5 million in the budget. <\/p>\n
Commissioner Christina Drewry says she realizes all county departments need more financial support but is keeping in mind the voter threshold.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we increase the revenue this much at this rate, then the voters have to go to the ballot in November and choose to either increase their taxes or vote it down,\u201d Drewry said. \u201cWhich could be detrimental to all the departments in the county.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final budget hearing will take place on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TYLER \u2014 Smith County Commissioners are in the middle of a challenging planning process for the 2027 budget and many residents have voiced confusion surrounding the Reserve Fund\u2019s purpose and why it\u2019s not being used for salary increases for county employees. \u201cThey think because we\u2019ve got millions of dollars in this reserve fund that we … Continue reading Commissioners debate budget and raises<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1528293,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1528263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-30 06:17:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1528263"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1528292,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528263\/revisions\/1528292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1528263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1528263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1528263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}