Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Dorchester County adopts $2025–26 budget after school millage amendments; council debates state funding formula
Summary
Dorchester County Council adopted its fiscal year 2025–26 budget on June 16, approving amendments raising millage for School Districts 2 and 4. Councilmembers pressed the limits of state funding rules during debate and recorded a 6–0 vote with one member absent.
Dorchester County Council on June 16 adopted the county—udget ordinance for fiscal year 2025 nd 2026 (Ordinance 25-11) after approving two amendments that adjust school millage allocations for School Districts 2 and 4.
The vote to adopt the budget as amended was 6 in favor, 0 opposed, 1 absent.
The council first voted to add 7.6 mills to School District 2, a change totaling $4,382,502. Council members then approved an adjustment that reduced another previously proposed allocation for District 2; the final county contribution shown in the meeting packet for District 2 was $130,221,328. The packet showed a final County appropriation for School District 4 of $23,599,341.
Why it matters: the school-millage adjustments were the most contested part of the budget discussion. Council members characterized the changes as necessary to address what they described as an inequitable effect of the state—unding formula on Dorchester County school districts. One councilmember said the county has been "decimated" by the formula and urged coordinated legal or legislative action with similarly affected counties.
Denise Christmas, deputy county administrator and chief financial officer, presented the May monthly budget report before the vote. She told council that general-fund revenues were roughly 92.6% collected and expenditures about 83.7% of budget, and that property tax collections were being posted into June and July. She also reported that the county—udget was updated to reflect $88.3 million in 2024 revenue bond proceeds for the water and sewer fund and that the county had $3,299,862 in remaining ARPA funds available to spend through the statutory deadline.
Council discussion touched on several budget-related lines: business license fees and building permits were reported to be at or slightly above budget; the capital fund is showing lower revenue because the use of fund balance was budgeted rather than collected; and the water and sewer fund reflected the revenue-bond amendment.
The council and staff also discussed the county ebt capacity. County staff reported available constitutional debt capacity under an 8% cap of about $45.5 million.
After council approved the school millage amendments and adopted the budget with no county-wide tax increase outside the school-district adjustments, Denise Christmas thanked council and staff for their work on the budget.
Ending: Council adopted the budget and several related amendments during the June 16 meeting; the adopted ordinance completes the county ppropriations for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025, and ending June 30, 2026.
