FAIRHOPE – After more than two months of reduced tax collections due to COVID-19, county revenue is back on track with sales and gasoline tax income passing totals for the same time in 2019, Baldwin officials said Monday.
The Baldwin County Commission is scheduled to vote in Sept. 15 on a budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The total budget for the upcoming year is about $185.6 million, Ron Cink, county budget director, said.
Cink said county officials worried when revenue dropped in the spring when the coronavirus shut down businesses and activities around the county and state.
“Year over year, it didn’t hurt us. It hurt us for two months, but it’s increasing faster than that part was,” Cink said. “We had two months or so that we were down, but we’ve had six or so that we’re up.”
He said sales taxes overall are up over the same time in 2019. “I haven’t seen this month’s yet, but as of last month, year to date, we’re 1.6 percent ahead of last year’s, to date,” Cink said.
He said gasoline tax revenue, which is designated for road building and maintenance, also dropped but recovered.
“Gasoline went down significantly,” Cink said. “Simply because people weren’t traveling. When you stay home and go to Walmart once a week, how much gas do you burn?”
Reopening the beaches in May helped spark the revenue recovery.
“The kids were out of school. Now they could utilize going to the beach in May when typically they’d wait until June. That was another added plus,” Cink said. “I saw the activity increase significantly in May.”
Commissioner Joe Davis, chairman of the county finance committee, said Cink and other employees did a good job of monitoring revenue and expenses as the economy fluctuated.
“I like to say that we did a super extra special job of holding things down,” Davis said. “We’ve got a super staff. The idea is we’re looking at everything. As we get bigger, we’ve got to get better in everything we do, including monitoring our dollars.”
The budget for 2019-20 fiscal year is $225.76 million. The difference was due to $40 million borrowed for improvements at the Baldwin County Corrections Center in Bay Minette that was included the budget passed one year ago. Cink said that while the money will be spent over the course of the construction project in the next several years, the loan was included in the budget.
The new budget is about the same as the 2018-19 budget, according to reports.
The 2020-21 budget includes some salary increases for employees, particularly lower-grade workers, Cink said.
Davis said Baldwin County conducted a salary survey that found that some workers were leaving for jobs with other counties and cities where the pay was better.
“We were actually a training ground for some people. They would come, work for us CDL license for example. We would come, work with them, move up their skill set and then they’d go and work for other places. It’s about how much you net. Gross is wonderful, but you’ve got to look at your net pay,” Davis said. “The process has gone through and made us competitive in the region.”
