Comment on Sullivan County budget in limbo five days out from new fiscal year

BLOUNTVILLE — Sullivan County government’s budget process is in freefall after a called meeting Tuesday of the Sullivan County Commission, ostensibly to approve the budget and a property tax rate to support it, disintegrated after nearly six hours of votes, revotes, recesses, breaks and a lengthy diversion into whether the county can take $7.5 million from the school system’s general fund to pay debt service on school bonds. When the meeting began, and as advertised to the public beforehand, the budget proposal at first included a seven-cent property tax increase.