Adopted FY2027 Budget — passed June 29, 2026 OFFICIAL · EXPENDITURE SIDE Load onto FY27 tab

The Commission adopted FY2027 General Fund appropriations of $33,230,550 (up from the FY2025 audited $27,545,276 and the FY2026 amended $31,549,473). Loading seeds the FY27 tab with the adopted amounts, rolled up to these nine function lines: Public Safety $16.70M (Sheriff $8.59M · Jail $6.14M) · General Government $5.33M · Finance $4.09M · Justice $3.33M · Other Operations $1.65M (incl. $87K transfers) · Health & Welfare $1.39M · Social/Recreational $374.5K · Agriculture $364.5K. These are legal spending ceilings on a budgetary basis — audited actuals typically land below them. The adopted $2,080 full-time COLA (5% regular part-time) is already inside the amounts, so the FY27 raise knob is zeroed on load. Revenue side still pending: the adopted estimated-revenue schedule was not in the June 29 packet, so revenue lines stay at the audited baseline until it's sourced.

Not loaded — FY27 currently carries the flat no-new-spending baseline.

How the General Fund's property tax is derived. The county rate — $1.0944/$100 AV outside Lenoir City, adopted June 29, 2026 ($0.8602 inside; Assessor's certified rate $1.1034; old pre-reappraisal rate $1.7683) — applies to the whole assessed-value base to produce the county-wide property tax. The General Fund receives only its general-purpose share (~56.9% per the FY2025 audit) — the rest of the levy funds schools, debt service, highways, and the library. The audited FY2025 GF property tax was $13,552,599, which is the default below.

Open reconciliation item — adopted FY2027 levy distribution. The adopted resolution splits the $1.0944 outside rate as: General $0.3617 · General Purpose School $0.4347 · Education Debt Service $0.2342 (outside only) · General Debt Service $0.0239 · Highway $0.0153 · Education Capital $0.0126 · Public Libraries $0.0087 · Highway Capital $0.0033. The General slice is 33.1% of the rate — well below the ~56.9% GF share the FY2025 audit implies. That gap can't be resolved without the certified assessed-value aggregate: either the AV placeholder here is low, the audited GF "property tax" line includes categories beyond the current general levy (prior-year collections, penalties, in-lieu payments), or the levy was materially rebalanced. Until the certified aggregate is public, the tool keeps the audited FY2025 anchor and flags rate-derived FY27 GF property tax as unresolved.

Assessed Value Base (~$2.175B) is an estimate, not yet sourced from an official reappraisal document. Switch the source toggle above to "Rate × AV Calculator" to drive the GF property-tax line from the rate and base instead of the audited figure.

$60M Rural School Bonds, Series 2026  ·  Sold June 16, 2026  ·  Delivery ~July 15, 2026  ·  Final schedule pending

Maturities June 1, 2027 – 2051. Rate band 4.00–5.00%. Secured by an unlimited ad valorem (GOULT) tax on property OUTSIDE Lenoir City and paid from the Education Debt Service Fund — a fund that is legally separate from the General Fund, with its own dedicated property tax levy. That levy is now real: the tax resolution adopted June 29, 2026 sets Education Debt Service at $0.2342/$100 AV, applied only outside Lenoir City (the inside rate is $0.8602 vs $1.0944 outside — the $0.2342 difference). The final priced debt-service schedule was not in the June 29 packet, so debt service below is still modeled from the Notice-of-Sale maturity schedule at the assumed rate.

This is why the numbers below are kept entirely separate from the General Fund tabs. A school bond does not appear as a General Fund expenditure and does not reduce the General Fund balance. What it does is require its own levy on top of the GF-supporting rate — which is what taxpayers feel on their combined bill.

Debt Service Basis:

Anticipated FY2027 Tranche PLACEHOLDER · NOT YET ISSUED Include in projections

The June 2026 Moody's opinion notes a possible issuance of up to ~$15M in FY2027 to complete the current high school project. Terms aren't public yet, so this is a reserved slot — off by default, changing nothing until you enable it. When on, it's modeled conservatively as level annual debt service amortized to the 2051 final maturity and layered onto the dedicated school levy. Update the figures below once official terms are released.

Disabled — current projections reflect the $60M Series 2026 only.

What the Taxpayer Actually Sees (Combined Bill)

The county levies these as two separate line items, but a property owner outside Lenoir City pays both. This is the combined effective rate per $100 of assessed value.

EST The school levy rate, combined rate, and outside-LC base all derive from the estimated assessed value and the 92% outside-Lenoir-City share. These move directly with those inputs — treat the rate figures as order-of-magnitude until the certified AV is confirmed.

Answers one question: does the dedicated school levy collect enough each year to cover that year's debt payment, or does the county have to draw down the Education Debt Service Fund's $10.7M starting balance (FY2025 AFR, Exhibit C-1) to make up the gap? Entirely separate from the General Fund — nothing here touches GF reserves.

The line below is cash on hand in the fund — not debt owed. A rising line means the levy is collecting more than the debt requires and the fund is piling up restricted cash (over-taxation); a falling line means it's drawing the cushion down to make payments. The $60M principal itself is paid off by the schedule regardless — this tab is only about whether the dedicated revenue stream stays matched to it.

Levy sized to:i Level = realistic default: one rate covering the average payment, so the fund stays near its starting cushion. Peak = sized to the worst year and never lowered (fund balloons — upper bound). Match = rate floats to each year's exact payment (fund flat).

Certified Levy Shortfall / Year-End True-Upi ESTIMATE · EDITABLE WHEN VERIFIED Model the shortfall

County officials have described the proposed certified rate coming in roughly $400K/year short of the school debt service, with the gap shored up at year-end by revenue not counted in the adopted budget — chiefly state-assessed public utility property, which is certified after the budget is set. This lets you see what that gap does to the fund over the life of the bonds — with the year-end true-up (the "it gets made up" case) and without it (the structural-drain case, since debt service is fixed and contractual while the true-up is variable and off-budget). Off by default; figures are estimates — update once confirmed against budget records.

Disabled — fund reflects the levy and debt schedule only.

Education Debt Service Fund — Balance & Annual Debt Service, 2027–2051i

Year-by-Year Detail

Year	Debt Service	Levy Collected	Net Cashflow	Fund Balance