By Tabitha Evans Moore
Editor & Publisher

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — Near the close of Monday’s Metro Council meeting, outgoing Budget Committee Chair Gerald Burnett — who is not seeking reelection after several years in the role — used the county’s own Trustee report to directly answer critics who have argued Moore County has a spending problem.

“You guys should have all got a copy of the trustee report,” Burnett told the Council. “A lot’s been said about transparency and fund balance in the budget, and I just want to point out a couple things on that general fund. The ending fund balance for this year is $2.3 million. We budgeted $950,000 — but we significantly exceeded our budget in terms of how much money we’re leaving in reserve.”

Burnett’s $2.3 million figure matches the county’s own Trustee report almost exactly. A copy of the Trustee’s Report obtained by The Times shows the General Fund’s ending balance for the fiscal year was $2,322,614.10, up from $2,257,645.02 at the start of the year. Across all county funds, total fund balances rose from roughly $11.06 million to $11.5 million over the same period, an increase of about 3.9 pecent.

“I think that could be attributed to the way our department heads, our mayor, and this Council have managed the budget over the past few years,” Burnett continued. “And that’s been the case every year — every one of those funds shown there, the budget we set for fund balance was exceeded significantly from what we budgeted.”

Burnett also pushed back on suggestions that the county’s finances lack transparency.

“Everything that we produce is online. It’s on the state website. The trustee has to sign off on it, the comptroller’s office has to sign off on it — it goes all the way up to the governor’s desk,” he said. “There’s nothing that’s being hidden or deceived in the budgeting, revenue, and expenses we produce as a county. So when you see this stuff in the newspaper or online, I’ll just ask you to pay attention to what the real data looks like.”

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WHAT THE NUMBERS SHOW

Burnett’s characterization holds up against the county’s audited financial reports going back five years and available on the Tennessee Comptroller’s website. Total county debt has declined every year since 2021, from $19 million to $18 million by 2024 and 2025, with debt per capita falling from $2,988 to $2,746 over the same period. Revenues have met or exceeded expenditures in four of the last five fiscal years. In the General Fund specifically, the adopted budget for the year ended June 30, 2025 projected a shortfall of $413,226 to be covered by fund balance — but actual results beat that budget by $628,545, posting a real surplus and growing the fund balance instead of drawing it down.

That pattern is distinct from a separate, ongoing critique of the county’s finances: state Comptroller audits have flagged recurring internal-control findings in three consecutive years, including the county’s continued failure to implement a consolidated purchasing department required by its own Metro Charter — a fix that would mean funding new dedicated staff, a cost the county has not budgeted for and that would likely require additional tax revenue to cover.

That finding does not involve questioned costs or allegations of misuse of public funds, and the county’s financial statements have received unmodified — clean — opinions each of the last three years. •

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