ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. (WJHL) — Carter County commissioners approved a budget Monday night without raising taxes, but it did include some sacrifices from county agencies.

The property tax rate is $2.18 per $100 of assessed property.

Carter County leaders said that after Hurricane Helene, the main thing their constituents asked for was no tax increase.

“It was never in the cards for us to have a tax increase,” Mayor Patty Woodby told News Channel 11. “We were always going to look for ways to either cut or find alternate ways for revenue to come in to balance our budget.”

After several meetings, hours of discussion, and crunching of numbers, a budget without a tax hike was produced.

“Certainly, I think many folks in Carter County were happy about that,” Budget Committee Chair Bob Acuff said. “Business owners as well as citizens, just because of the devastations that we’ve been through and the expense.”

Woodby and Acuff said it was a team effort, with different departments bringing budgets that were as lean as possible. It also involved Sheriff Mike Fraley moving money within his budget.

“We had some money in reserve accounts that we were able to, help shift to balance the budget, which in essence, helped get an employee raise for all county employees,” Fraley said. “Plus, it was able to help fund some of the outside agencies.”

Full-time employees will receive a 75-cent per hour raise while part-time employees will get a 35-cent increase. The county also changed its insurance provider, which will save $180,000, with employees keeping the same benefits.

“Some of that reserve money and then also some of the savings that we seen from our insurance change, we were able to give each of our seven fire departments a $20,000 increase on top of their annual budget,” Woodby said. “So that’s a big deal for our volunteer fire departments.”

The county will keep funding for non-profits the same as last year, without any cuts.