For six months, Wise County supervisors have struggled with how to cut more than $5 million from the upcoming annual county budget.
Reductions were needed following several years of budgeted spending that exceeded sustainable income, fueled by temporary COVID pandemic emergency funds and dipping into diminishing county reserve funds.
County officials have whacked, whittled and surgically sliced their way to a tentative fiscal 2026-27 budget that reaches the spending cut target. But most of the pain is yet to come in the form of reduced services and higher tax bills.
Following its May 14 meeting, the board of supervisors agreed to advertise for a public hearing on an overall budget of about $87.1 million for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
That’s nearly $5.5 million less than the current budget. Residents will get to comment on the draft budget during the board’s June 11 meeting. But some details remain unsettled.
The General Assembly has yet to pass a state budget that will affect local pay raises and other agency funding. And many citizens are upset about the single largest spending cut — a potential $2.3 million reduction in local funds for Sheriff Grant Kilgore’s office.
Tax bills will rise while jobs and services will be cut. The draft 2026-27 general fund budget is about $65.8 million, roughly $10 million less than the current budget.
But that amount doesn’t include grant-funded projects totaling $11.5 million, the $4.53 million landfill fund, the $1.69 million coal road improvement fund, $1.53 million in school resource officer grants to the sheriff’s office, a more than $647,000 sewer enterprise fund and various smaller dedicated funds.
The potential $2.3 million cut in local funds for the sheriff’s office is tied in part to whether state grants for 20 school resource officers are renewed. Six positions are funded through June 30 by a grant that Kilgore says is unlikely to be renewed. Twelve positions are funded through Dec. 31, with grant renewal uncertain. Two positions are funded through mid-2028. Two positions are vacant.
One county supervisor, Tim Boardwine, is a resource officer in St. Paul schools. He has abstained from budget votes.
Kilgore asked supervisors to commit local funding to maintain those jobs if state funds run out, but supervisors say it will be up to Kilgore to decide how to spend the local money he gets.
Kilgore, other sheriff’s office employees and several citizens have expressed concern at recent county board meetings about possibly losing school resource officers.
The sheriff said he understands that county officials are dealing with a financial burden and his office is doing its best to manage the cut requests made of the sheriff’s office.
“At the same time, it is difficult for me as sheriff to see such a substantial portion of the overall reductions coming from public safety. I see firsthand what these cuts could mean and the impact they may have on our citizens, schools and community as a whole,” he wrote in an email to questions from Cardinal News.
For many years, the county provided local funding for the school resource officers, he added. Over the past year, however, the sheriff’s office received grant funding, which meant the local funding wasn’t needed.
Kilgore said his concern now is that if the grants aren’t renewed, there “currently does not appear to be a long-term funding plan in place to continue supporting those positions. While some have suggested that decisions on where to spend funds rest solely with the sheriff, many of these programs require dedicated funding streams in order to exist and operate effectively.”
During the May 14 meeting, several supervisors said they appreciate the officers and agree they are needed, but the county has had to make hard spending decisions.
Other budget cuts include the loss of at least one job in county administration and eight jobs in constitutional offices, mostly by not filling positions that are vacant or about to become vacant as employees retire or leave for other jobs.
Also, the county is switching from the state’s Key Advantage 250 group health insurance plan to the Key Advantage 500 plan and reallocating the employer/employee cost split, meaning employees will pay more. This will save the county about $624,000.
Along with cuts, the county plans to increase revenue through an effective real estate tax bill increase and a 14-cent personal property tax rate hike.
Real estate tax bills will go up because of a property reassessment that raised average countywide residential property values by 35%. For tax bills to stay roughly the same, supervisors would have had to lower the tax rate from 69 cents per $100 of assessed value to 55 cents. Instead, six of eight supervisors voted to keep the 69-cent rate, which will boost revenue by about $5.4 million.
With more real estate and personal property tax income, and an expected public service corporation tax revenue increase because of reassessment, overall county tax revenue is expected to grow by about $6.45 million.
Remaining uncertainties include how much state funding county schools will get and how much of a cost-of-living raise will go to employees in constitutional offices such as the sheriff, treasurer, commissioner of revenue and circuit court clerk. The General Assembly still has not passed a new state budget. Competing House and Senate versions include either a 2% or 3% pay hike for state workers, public school employees and local constitutional office workers.
Other county employees will not get a raise.
While school officials still don’t know how much state money the division will get, the county has budgeted a total of nearly $17.4 million in local dollars. Local funds for school operations are set at $14.8 million, a roughly $678,000 increase, but local school construction debt service funding is set at about $2.59 million, a decrease of about $2.3 million.
Also uncertain is the future of landfill operations. Officials think it may not be feasible to expand the existing landfill, which could run out of space in about one year. They are looking at the costs of converting to a transfer station operation, which would collect garbage for shipment to a different landfill, possibly one in Northeast Tennessee.
The draft budget includes $2.93 million for trash collection, an increase of nearly $558,000, and $553,000 for trash disposal, a decrease of $103,000.
How did the county get here?
In November 2025, county Treasurer Delores Smith told supervisors the county was about $6 million short on cash relative to budgeted spending for the rest of fiscal 2025-26.
A few weeks later, Smith told them that for several years, the county had been spending about $4 million more than it took in. Federal emergency funding in the wake of the COVID-19 emergency was used to expand several departments, but spending was not reduced once the COVID dollars stopped coming. Also, the county was draining non-general fund reserves to balance the budget.
The current budget was balanced by plugging in $7 million from a fund designated to pay down school construction debt.
After seven years on the job, County Administrator Mike Hatfield retired at the end of December, but he said the timing was driven by personal plans, not budget woes.
County Attorney Karen Mullins was named interim administrator.
As budget discussions continued, several supervisors expressed surprise at the growing gap between income and spending. Smith said that under the previous administration, her warnings were not heeded.
A majority of supervisors voted in March to keep the real estate tax rate the same.
During a February public hearing, 45 people spoke against the effective tax increase, but Mullins explained that even with the increased real estate tax income and the 14-cent personal property tax rate increase, the county would still be nearly $5 million short, requiring spending cuts in the next budget.
