Tryon approves new budget; 25-cent increase in garbage rates

Published 10:00 pm Thursday, June 30, 2016

The Town of Tryon adopted its fiscal year 2016-2017 budget on Tuesday morning that includes no property tax, fire department tax, Harmon Field tax or water/sewer rate increases but does include a 25-cent per month increase in garbage rates.

Council met on June 21 but recessed that meeting until Tuesday, June 28 in order to approve the budget and decide whether or not to increase sanitation fees. The increase in sanitation fees is a 1.25 percent increase in revenues.

Tryon Town Manager Joey Davis said the increase is to offset Polk County’s increase next year in tipping fees.

The county also included a new $10 per item charge effective Jan. 1, 2017 for white goods, such as refrigerators. Davis said Tryon will publish a list of white goods for customers between now and January to inform and educate people before the new fee goes into effect.

Tryon Mayor Alan Peoples said last week the town could do a slight increase and did not want to increase the rates more than a quarter.

Tryon’s total budget for the general fund was adopted for $1,919,105 for next fiscal year, which begins this Friday, July 1. The general fund includes $41,700 for the governing board, $455,304 for administration, $767,674 for police, $574,667 for streets, $12,100 for parks and cemetery, $4,300 for zoning, planning and community development and $63,360 for debt service and transfers. The town’s street department is seeing a major increase for next year after the town approved borrowing $200,000 from its fund balance to repair streets and sidewalks.

Departments outside the general fund include $224,285 budgeted for sanitation, $1,602,757 budgeted for the water/sewer department, $180,118 for Harmon Field  and $383,509 from the town for the fire department. Last week council discussed purchasing a used brush truck from Oak Grove in Cleveland County that more meets the town’s needs and selling its old brush truck. During Tuesday’s recessed meeting council decided to purchase the brush truck. The newer brush truck the fire department plans to finance at a debt service of $10,000 per year. The truck is a 2004 model with 19,000 miles. Davis said the town’s current brush truck was appraised for $20,000 and the Green Creek Fire Department has expressed interest in purchasing it.

The town’s total budget is for $4,394,124 and includes no salary increases. The current year budget is a total of $4,202,279 with the increase next year being the town’s contribution from fund balance to pay for a sidewalk project downtown and repaving Howard Street and part of Peake Street.