LEXINGTON COUNTY, S.C. — Lexington County is counting their over $250M. As of Tuesday, council has a draft version of how they'll be budgeting those dollars and that does not include money going to school districts.
The primary focus is on law enforcement and public safety due to population growth.
"The pool of qualified people is dwindling. We’re all fishing in a small pond and it’s an arms race salary-wise that I’ve never seen in my career," Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon said. "So, we realized we had fallen off the market value a little bit for our starting and our retention efforts, so county council had gotten a recommendation from the administrator to include a 5% raise for all employees up to 5%. So, I went back a couple weeks ago and asked them for an additional 10%."
Council’s first version of the budget settles at a 10% salary increase for the sheriff’s office.
"There’s going to be no increase in taxes again," said Darrell Hudson, Lexington county council member for district three. "Now, there will be a slight increase in the Irmo Fire District, very minimal, and that’s it. We were able to balance the budget, and we used fund balance for a lot of it, including the solicitor’s office, the magistrate’s office."
Councilman Hudson tells News 19 help from the county’s administrators allowed them to be resourceful and get all their questions answered.
"We had to be competitive to draw in the people to fill those positions," Hudson said. "Instead of raising taxes or raising the mills to raise taxes, we went to the fund balance, which is the smartest thing to do and the correct thing to do and the right thing to do and the fiduciary responsibility thing to do."
Hudson said council was able to grant nearly everyone’s wishes except for The COMET’s 15% pay increase ask.
Lexington County council will have a public hearing June 7, followed by their second reading that same night.
The third and final reading is set for June 21 in time for their next budget cycle starting July 1, 2022.