By Tabitha Evans Moore
Editor & Publisher

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — On Monday, the Metro Council will consider the first approval of the Moore County General Budget for fiscal year 2026-27, which begins on July 1. Under the Metro Charter, the budget requires two separate approvals. That means citizens will have a public comment period before the second vote, scheduled for the June 15 meeting.

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Here are some things to consider when forming an opinion about this year’s budget:

Spending remains mostly flat in Moore County. Overall, the FY 2026-27 tax levy looks a lot like the FY 2025-26 with all spending remaining steady apart from an additional .02 cents in the Capital Projects line item, which previously contained no allocation. According to Budget Committee Chair Gerald Burnett, these funds will be used to offset the retirement contributions for Metro employees into the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System (TCRS) as well as funds required compliance repairs to the Moore County Jail.

The Council voted to move all eligible county employees to the TCRS last August. The move offers state retirement to county employees that weren’t already approved to receive it such as Metro Moore County Sheriff’s Department, Metro Public Safety, and the Metro Utility Department. Courthouse officials and Moore County School System employees were already offered the plan.

The Jail renovation is a compliance issue not an upgrade. Those updates will be happening at the behest of the Tennessee Corrections Institute (TCI) and the State Fire Marshal’s Office and not local authorities. The plans are intended to bring aging portions of the facility into compliance with modern standards and address long-standing structural concerns.

Despite rising costs, this is a modest increase. The proposed .02 cent increase would amount to $5 per $100,000 of a residential home’s value or an additional $8 per $100,000 of commercial or industrial property value.

Here’s how that gets figured: Basically, you take your parcel’s appraised value and multiply it by the assessment ratio, which is 25 percent for residential and farms or 40 percent for commercial and industrial property. That gives you your assessed value. Then you divide that number by 100 and multiply by Moore County’s tax rate.

For example, at the new proposed tax rate of $1.768, a $100,000 home would pay $442 in property tax. At last year’s rate of $1.748, that same taxpayer would have paid $437 — a difference of $5.

The state’s annual ratio study is affecting Moore County’s tax base this year. Moore County real property tax ratio for FY 2026-27 is 88.21%  — meaning county appraisals are running at about 88 cents on the dollar compared to actual market value. That’s normal between reappraisals. But this changes the numbers. To understand, you must understand something called a ratio study. Tennessee law requires counties to reappraise real property — homes, land, buildings — only every four to six years. Between those reappraisals, a homeowner’s taxable value stays frozen even if their property has gone up in value. Businesses and utilities don’t get that same break. Their property is reassessed every single year. That creates an unfairness problem. To fix it, the state measures how far behind county appraisals have drifted from actual market value and applies that gap as a discount to business and utility assessments. So, when you see the tangible personal property value drop from about $59.7 million to $52.7 million in the FY 2026-27 budget, that’s not an error — it’s the state-required adjustment making sure businesses aren’t taxed at a higher effective rate than homeowners just because their assessments happen more often. That brings the total FY 2026-27 tax base to $533,204,671, producing a penny value of $53,320.47. Last year a penny brought in $51,419.

A new entry on the horizon: the solar farm. Moore County residents may begin hearing more about how the incoming solar farm affects the county’s tax base once it becomes operational. When it does, the facility will likely be assessed by the state as a public utility rather than as commercial or industrial property — and that distinction matters.

Public utility property is taxed at 55 percent of its assessed value, compared to 30 percent for commercial and industrial property. That’s a higher assessment ratio, which sounds like good news for county revenue. But because public utility assessments are also subject to the annual ratio study adjustment, the county won’t see the full assessed value reflected in the tax base. How much Moore County ultimately collects from the solar farm will depend on the state’s valuation of the facility — a number that won’t be known until the farm comes online and the state completes its assessment.

It’s something the Budget Committee and Metro Council will be watching closely over the next year or two as the project moves toward completion.

The Metro Council will meet at 6:30 p.m. tonight and the main item on the agenda is the budget. There will be a public hearing at 6:20 p.m. to hear comments for or against rezoning requests at 53 Pleasant Hill Road from Agricultural to Residential 2, at 5757 Lynchburg Highway from Industrial 2 to Residential 2, and at 290 Thompson Creek Road from Agricultural to Residential 2. All Metro Council meetings take place at the American Legion located off Highway 129 near the Lynchburg Pool. •

ABOUT THE LYNCHBURG TIMES Public meeting coverage is crucial to the citizens of any small town. It matters who’s in the room, what decisions are being made on your behalf, and how those decisions trickle down into everyday life. Our editor, Tabitha Evans Moore, has covered Metro Moore County public meetings for more than 20 years — bringing the institutional knowledge to report them with the nuance that makes local government accessible to every citizen. If you’d like to support our work, you can do so at this link.