At the end of the day, Surry County commissioners decided at their budget retreat Friday that even though the economy is struggling overall, they would not raise taxes and instead would look at ways to make county government more efficient to keep the budget on track.

The top three goals outlined by the commissioners were: economic development and job creation; budget reduction by cost-cutting and non-personnel focus; and to finish projects underway and those already on the horizon. A fourth and secondary goal was outlined as looking at green initiatives and making recycling a habit in order to reduce waste from the landfill.

David Long, the facilitator for the retreat, asked commissioners what they wanted to accomplish by day’s end.

Chairman Craig Hunter started off the meeting by saying that he just “wanted to be quiet and listen to the other commissioners.”

Commissioner Jimmy Miller said he looked forward to continuing to work with the board to resolve some of the issues that have been brought about by a financial downturn that has affected the entire country.

“This is one of the best boards to work with. I would like to see that continue. I think the way things are, that is getting so important. It also moves government and it moves people to get back to work,” Miller said.

Commissioner Paul Johnson agreed with Hunter, in that, he also wanted to do more listening than talking.

“Sometimes it’s better to listen. I think all of us know what our goals are. We are trying to move the county ahead and treat our people to what they need. We need to fine tune what our goals have been all along,” Johnson said.

Commissioner Bill Hamlin said he would be willing to look at ways to keep the county budget on track without hurting county resident services.

“The times being as they are economically, we need to do anything we can to make the county better — we need to explore those possibilities,” Hamlin said.

Commissioner Jim Harrell Jr. said he agreed with the rest of the board.

“Right now, I guess my main concern is that we need to do all that we need to do for the people of Surry County,” Harrell said.

Hunter said that just before coming to the meeting Friday morning, he ran into someone who gave him some words of wisdom as he was preparing to attend the retreat.

“I talked with a man this morning, who I truly respect, and he told me that when the economy is bad, leadership will sometimes retreat. We need to hunker down and not retract. True leaders are the ones who understand what it takes to be a leader and will rise and bring others with you. I just don’t want our money to go away. The five of us have got to get out of our comfort zone. Someone told me that ‘you guys need to be leaders and don’t let fear keep you from doing what you need to do,’” Hunter told the board going forward into the meeting.

Then the board moved toward discussions of how to deal with the county’s budget and the issues facing them financially.

Harrell mentioned using the fund balance, or the county’s savings, to solve the county’s budgetary issues.

“We have a big fund balance for a rainy day, maybe this is the rainy day. This may be the time to use that,” Harrell said.

“Seems like nobody knows how to get out of it,” responded Miller.

“One thing that is going to affect your goals today is the economic stimulus package. That’s going to be a big factor in what happens in the next couple of years,” Johnson said.

Betty Taylor, Surry County’s assistant county manager for budget and finance, talked briefly about sales tax revenue for the county.

“For a rural county, we do really, really well with sales tax. Interstate 77 brings us a lot of sales tax — among other things. Sales tax is a great thing for us,” she continued.

Taylor told the group that 91.6 percent of the county’s budget comes from property tax.

“As I go through these revenues, I am very pleased. I have a little concern in health and human services with the ability of patients to pay, but right now the picture does not look bad,” Taylor said. “When we collect property tax, money is tighter this time of year.”

Taylor went down the list of the county’s biggest property-tax payers. Pike Electric topped the list as Surry County’s biggest property-tax payer, Duke Energy came in second. Carolina Candle Corp. is the county’s third largest taxpayer. Surry-Yadkin Electric pays $29 million, while Lowe’s Home Improvement pays $21 million and Wayne Farms pays $14 million per year in taxes.

Another big topic between Taylor and the commissioners came down to county vehicle use.

“Pretty soon we are going to have to look at vehicle-use policies. We are going to have to start taxing these folks for taking these vehicles home. In the future, it will have to be a job requirement that they take (county vehicles) home. Commuting mileage is personal, so that is taxable,” Taylor explained.

The commissioners went on to debate whether it is better for emergency officials with the sheriff’s office, emergency services and fire marshals to respond with county vehicles straight from their homes, or to require them to go to the county office in a personal vehicle to pick up the county vehicles.

Hamlin said that the county response time is 18 minutes.

“They have 539 square miles of county to cover. I don’t know that you can do better than that,” Hamlin said.

Harrell suggested that although fire marshals are part of the emergency response system, he said they have time to drive to where the county vehicle is parked from home before going to investigate a fire.

“Fire marshal has to go out to a fire — they are part of the emergency response. The sheriff and EMS — and the rest of them — they could use their own cars then we could reimburse them,” Harrell said.

Hunter responded to that by saying, “We don’t want to be stingy.”

Johnson said that he doesn’t think that all emergency vehicles should be responding to all calls at such a high rate of speed.

“What common sense tells me is that they should only be going so fast. There’s only a certain speed you need to get there,” Johnson said.

Hamlin said he felt that “if there’s really a need for them to take car home with them,” then he didn’t have a problem with it.

Hunter urged commissioners to put together a contingency plan that asks department heads to go over their budgets and factor in the cost of taking county vehicles home.

Harrell responded by saying, “We just don’t want there to be a number. We need to find out how complicated is it to do it that way.”

Hunter said that when it comes to health and public safety, it is hard to question their use of their vehicles.

“There are several ways to approach it. We can look at more energy-efficient vehicles. But I know those are very expensive,” Hunter said.

“With the cost of these things, I don’t know if it would warrant that,” Hamlin responded. “Right now, gas is at $1.90 a gallon, but we all know it’s only a matter of time before it’s back up to $4 a gallon.”

“We also need to look at buying in bulk rather than buying retail,” Hunter suggested.

The board agreed to have County Manager Dennis Thompson ask to set up meetings with department heads and get back to the commissioners on what sort of reductions in their budgets they could make when it comes to vehicle use.

“I think what we’d be looking to see is if they can give us some ideas on how to reduce their budgets. We need to let them know that we would prefer that they find the reductions themselves,” Taylor said.

The consensus of the board is for department heads to find 2-percent budget reductions on their own.

“I think being a leader and taking cost reduction measures means we are being leaders,” Hunter said.

“I think we are doing good to keep it at 2 percent,” Taylor responded. The county could save $638,000 with a 2-percent reduction.

“I think I have fairly clear instruction from the board on how to proceed,” Thompson answered.

Contact Mondee Tilley at mtilley@mtairynews.com or 719-1930.