County council passes final reading of 2026-27 budgets

The Laurens County Council passed third and final reading of the county’s 2026-27 general and fire services budgets Monday night during a special called meeting at the Historic Laurens County Courthouse.

Council approved the balanced general budget of $42,463,311 that includes a millage increase by a 4-2 vote. Councilmen Justin Lane and Matthew Brownlee voted against the budget ordinance. Councilman Brown Patterson was absent.

The 2026-27 fire budget of $5,546,237 passed by a 6-0 vote. The total is up from just over $5.2 million for the current fiscal year.

The budget was passed ahead of the July 1 deadline imposed by the state and ends a months-long process by staff. Council members held their first budget workshop on May 11.

The millage rate for this year’s budget increased from 105.05 to 110.29, an increase of 5.24 mills for the coming fiscal year. The reassessed taxable property values have increased 13.01% from $220,777,870 to $256,731,040 for 2026-27.

County Administrator Jerre Threatt said the increase was brought about by increased costs across the board and keeps the county from dipping into its reserve fund to cover what would have been a budget deficit of $1,245,400. The approved budget also left around $1.37 million in departmental requests unfunded for 2026-27.

“(The millage increase) brings our revenues up to basically $42.5 million, and our expenses are still basically at $42.5 million, so we have a balanced budget,” Threatt said. “On the deficit reduction side, we’re not pulling from a deficit reduction to balance our budget.”

Brownlee said the millage increase was the sole reason for his vote against the passage of the budget ordinance.

“We didn’t end up in the position I’d like to be, but I hope that next year we’ll have enough time with our new administrator and our finance director that we get to the right place and where we need to be,” Brownlee said.

Laurens County Tax Assessor G.W. Dailey said the county should expect taxes for about $350 million in new construction, which should provide around $3 million, next year. Those projects have been completed and will be taxed in arrears to provide the county a windfall.

County employees received a 3% cost-of-living pay increase, which accounted for the increases, said Council Chairman Jeff Carroll.

“The budget was as close to regular operating that we could possibly do,” Carroll said. “The increase was due to personnel cost, additional personnel that we added and the cost-of-living increases. It was simply taking care of our people who take care of us – that’s where the budget was. It’s an increase, but you live in it. The economy is not easy, and people that work for a living are being squeezed, so we just tried to do within reason with what we had.”