Commissioner candidates speak on ad valorem issue

ROCKINGHAM — With all that’s gone on over last two months, both locally and nationally, it’s easy to forget that it’s an election year and there are three seats available on the Richmond County Board of Commissioners this fall, with only one incumbent.

The Daily Journal reached out to all the candidates for county commissioner to get their take on the ongoing battle between the county and the municipalities over the county’s vote on April 6 to change to an ad valorem sales tax distribution method without first notifying the municipalities.

To recap: County Manager Bryan Land told the current board prior to the vote that this move would add a conservative estimate of $675,000 in sales tax revenue to the county’s coffers. The board approved it unanimously, only for the municipalities to find out the next day — when contacted by the Daily Journal for comment — that they stood to lose huge portions of their budgets from this change.

Over the next several weeks, the City of Rockingham produced figures, based on the sales tax distribution from the 2018-2019 fiscal year under a per capita distribution method, that contradicted Land’s projection and showed that these impacts would be spread among the municipalities, affecting the smaller ones the most; leaving Norman with zero sales tax revenue. The Department of Revenue then released projections that tracked with Rockingham’s projections and showed that the county would have received an additional $1.8 million last year under ad valorem.

The municipalities joined together in April to ask the county to overturn this decision and instead raise county taxes, to no avail. At their May board meeting, Commissioner Rick Watkins put forward a motion to seek a third party review of taxation in Richmond County, with support from Commissioner Tavares Bostic. This review, as was informally agreed on in the meeting, would be done by a firm hired with contribution from the county and Hamlet and Rockingham, to be completed by February 2021.

The municipalities have not been receptive to this idea, and the Daily Journal is not aware of any municipal officials being contacted by county commissioners to discuss this idea.

Below are summaries of each candidate’s responses. Their answers are presented in alphabetical order. Some have been edited for space and clarity. Jimmy Capps (D), the only incumbent in the race and who seconded Commissioner Ben Moss’s motion for the change to ad valorem, could not be reached for comment Friday.

Lee Berry (R)

Berry said that he would not have voted to change to ad valorem without first seeing definitive numbers on how it would impact the municipalities and without the municipalities having prior notice of this change. As the former mayor of Ellerbe, he said he doesn’t like the struggle he’s seeing the town go through to balance their budget due to this.

“Even though it’s legal (for the county to change without prior notice) I don’t like the way it was done,” Berry said. “I don’t like it as a candidate and I don’t like it as a city-limit taxpayer of Ellerbe. It affects us more so than it would Rockingham or Hamlet. There’s a whole lot of communication that should have taken place before this vote took place.”

He said he supports Moss’s idea, put forward via Facebook this week, to return the revenues the county receives over $675,000 back to the municipalities. Berry also expressed support for the third party review, put forward by Watkins and Bostic, as a way to get a better idea of the impacts. However, he said that the other municipalities could also contribute smaller amounts to fund the review.

Berry added that this unexpected move “couldn’t come at a worse time,” referring to the pandemic. Even though they’re representatives of the county, Berry said that as a commissioner you’ve got to have the municipalities in mind when you make decisions.

Dewey Brower (D)

Brower said of the county commissioners that, if they didn’t know how this change to ad valorem would impact the municipalities, that they should have asked questions before voting.

“I would have asked questions and gotten more information to rectify what it would mean to the municipalities,” Brower said. “I would let the municipalities know what’s going on, instead of voting on something we’re not sure about.”

If he was on the board, he said he would have asked the municipal leaders to meet and discuss the issue so he could report back to the county and have a more clear idea of how they felt about it. Brower said he supports the idea of a third party review of the issue, but said the money it would take to fund it would be too much. “We’re already short,” he said.

Andy Grooms (R)

Grooms said that he thinks the county made the right decision to address their budget shortfall but that the municipalities should have been more involved.

“I think it was a tough decision they made, I understand the feeling of the council members from the municipalities but I think the (commissioners) made the right decision,” he said. “They’re elected to find money and look out for county interests. Now, whether they should have given the municipalities notice … maybe they should have been more involved.”

With it being a unanimous vote, Grooms said it’s hard for him to believe that all the commissioners, who are from different walks of life, would come to the same conclusion if it wasn’t what they thought was in the best interests of the county.

“If you hear ‘taxes’ and you don’t know what you’re voting on an alarm should go off and you should either abstain or ask for more information,” Grooms said, referring to Commissioner Don Bryant’s statement after the fact that he “didn’t know” what he was voting on.

“If I had been (on the board) and didn’t understand the impacts I wouldn’t have voted on it, I would have asked to wait another year,” Grooms said.

Grooms said he isn’t sure Moss’s idea is the best way to go because it’s unclear how much revenue will even be available due to the pandemic, and that Watkins and Bostic’s idea to hold a third party review should’ve been done prior to the vote. He called the third party review a “waste of time now” because the municipalities won’t be satisfied unless they get their revenue back, plus “they’ve already got a third party review” from the state.

Michael Legrand (D)

Legrand called for more transparency and communication between the county and the municipalities.

“We have to communicate — the municipalities, city managers, the mayors — we have to communicate with everyone involved,” Legrand said. “We should have a relationship with each other where we communicate before making major decisions.

“It’s really going to be a financial strain on all of the municipalities, and you don’t want that,” he continued. “You don’t want to take so much money from these towns, these cities, to the point where they’re having to make the cuts that they’re making.”

Legrand said that if he was on the board he would have sought a meeting with the municipalities before a vote on the change took place and said, “This is the situation. This is the predicament we’re in. What decision can make that’s going to benefit all of us involved?”

“There is no way we can work together and not trust each other. We need to have a relationship where we can be transparent,” he said. “We all make up Richmond County. If you need to do what’s best for Richmond County, how can you do that without communicating?”

Jeff Smart (R)

Smart said that the county and the municipalities should have worked together through this change. No matter what kind of finances you’re dealing with, whether personal, business or government, revenues must be equal or greater than expenses and that is achieved by either increasing revenue or cutting expenses, Smart said. But these two things must happen quickly now for Richmond County.

“I would hope that the entities could all come together and find ways to make this ad valorem appropriation change happen over a long period of time if it has to happen,” he said. “By working together maybe all involved can set aside their personal feelings and find ways to meet in the middle somewhere so that all entities can have successful budgets.”

If he was on the board on April 6, Smart said he would have asked for more information going in.

“With my experience as Hamlet Mayor from 2007 to 2013 I would have known what kind of impact this would have had to not just Hamlet’s budget but to all of the municipalities budgets in Richmond County,” he said. “If elected I will become more educated on the financial numbers of the County budget so that I can contribute to the financial success going forward.”

Smart said that at this point, picking sides and casting blame is not important. A situation where the only answer is raising taxes is bad for both the municipalities and the county, he said.

“Let’s find a way to make this work going forward by working together,” said Smart. “The only way to work together is if all entities involved are willing to give a little bit.”