At a special called meeting on June 24 Jackson County Board of Commissioners voted to leave the Fontana Regional Library system and passed an increased budget with a last-minute tax tweak.
The move to leave the FRL is the result of a two-year campaign spearheaded by Commissioner John Smith, several Macon County residents and former Jackson County Republican Party Chair Keith Blane. Commissioners Todd Bryson, Michael Jennings and Jenny Hooper recently joined the effort.
The vote to leave the 74-year regional partnership came after a joint meeting on June 19 between the FRL Board of Trustees and commissioners to discuss library operations.
After a brief discussion on Tuesday night the board voted 4:1 to leave the library system.
Board chair Mark Letson dressed in yellow, the color adopted by supporters of the library, spoke on his reluctance to exit the agreement.
He cited FRL policies already in place, the fact that new board appointees had barely had time to do their commissioners’ will, possible increased costs and a lack of book challenges.
“No one has appealed a book since the last two years,” Letson said. “If these books were so bad, I would think in the last two months, we’d have seen a lot of appeals. We’d have heard about them, and it would have been able to direct us better, but there just hasn’t been that driver in the community other than in the form of open debate. So, to me it just doesn’t make sense to remove ourselves from Fontana Regional Library being that the pieces are in place to move the policies that we need or that Fontana Regional feels they need.”
Letson added that he also wanted to wait and see how Yancey County’s efforts to leave the Avery, Mitchell, Yancey system played out so as to take cues from their missteps.
He asked other members for their thoughts.
Smith mentioned the joint meeting saying that all he heard from FRL trustees was that they could “look at” this or “couldn’t do” some things.
“We didn’t have any, ‘We will do that,’” he said. “Without starting a clock on us getting out, I don’t see there’s any incentive for them to do anything.”
He added that if FRL made changes that commissioners liked, the county could always change its mind.
Jennings expressed dissatisfaction with board makeup.
“I don’t like the fact that even with us able to appoint our own board members…you still could be outvoted over what you want in your county,” he said.
County budget approved; tax rate set at 31 cents
In May, County Manager Kevin King presented a budget with increased spending and a property tax rate that would increase many people’s taxes.
The total proposed budget minus $25,000 of interfund transfers would have been $120,471,401, which represents a nearly 4.5% increase over the FY 2024-25 budget. The budget was based on a proposed property tax rate of 32 cents per $100 valuation. The tax rate, while reduced from 38 cents per $100 valuation, is still an increase for many people because property values have risen in recent years.
Commissioners Jenny Hooper and Michael Jennings dug in their heels over the increase and asked the board to reexamine the budget to see if the rate could be further reduced.
The budget was also challenged by former County Commissioner Ron Mau who pointed out that the revenue neutral rate was left out of the budget proposal. The rate was posted to the county website in a separate document a week after Mau’s comments at the June 3 Commissioners’ meeting.
King and Letson cited increased public safety needs including adding a pully paid staff at Qualla Fire Department and building projects such as renovations to Canada Fire Department and the Justice Center, constructing a new administration building and a new middle school and repairs at Blue Ridge School as the reason behind increased taxes.
At the called meeting, King said he and Finance Director Darlene Fox were able to find almost $2.9 million in savings and were able to reduce the property tax rate to 31 cents. Cuts were made by reducing the transfer to capital reserve by $1 million. They also eliminated two planned animal control positions and a school resource officer for the middle school, and cutting allocations to Canada, Savanah and Balsam Fire departments for paving projects and further reducing the Greenway fund transfer for a total of $1,827,621. They additionally moved $101,214 out of the county’s contingency fund.
“I think that’s about as far as we can stretch it,” Letson said.
The board voted unanimously to pass the budget.