By Tabitha Evans Moore
Editor & Publisher

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — With a two cent increase over the previous year, the Metro Moore County budget failed its first reading Monday night when the council fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority required for approval. With four members absent — Douglas Carson, Houston Lindsey, Greg Guinn, and Jimmy Hammond — only eleven of the fifteen council members were present. The budget needed ten yes votes; it received nine.

The two cent increase would have been used to create a rainy day fund for capital projects. Budget Committee Chair Burnett, who does not plan to run for re-election, explained to the group the intention of the two cent increase was to help the future councils by creating a small rainy day fund.

“Nobody likes paying taxes,” he said. “But if you chip a little along, it’s easier than some of the fifteen, eighteen, and twenty-two cent increases we’ve had.”

On first reading, Dexter Golden, Gerald Burnett, Shane Taylor, Amy Cashion, John Taylor, Bradley Dye, Arvis Bobo, Marty Cashion, and Sunny Rae Moorehead voted in favor with Robert Bracewell and Peggy Blackburn voting no.

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Burnett strips two cent increase; second vote fails 6-5

Bracewell’s objection centered on the two-cent increase, saying he opposed the pension expansion — though Chair Amy Cashion noted the TCRS vote had already been decided in a prior meeting.

Budget Committee Chair Gerald Burnett then made a substitute motion to strip the two cents and hold the tax levy flat at the current rate of $1.7412. That motion also failed, 6-5. On the second vote, Marty Cashion, Arvis Bobo, Amy Cashion, John Taylor, Gerald Burnett, and Blackburn voted yes and Robert Bracewell, Sunny Rae Moorehead, Bradley Dye, Shane Taylor, and Dexter Golden voted no.

Later in the same meeting, Bracewell voted yes on first reading of the jail compliance repairs — the very project the two-cent increase was intended to help fund. Chair Amy Cashion noticed the contradiction.

“You just voted no. I don’t understand your logic,” she stated after the first vote but prior to the second.

The council could need a special-called meeting to pass the budget before July 1. If no budget is adopted by that date, state law allows Moore County to operate under the prior year’s budget through August — though officials would need Comptroller approval to extend that continuation budget through September. •

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