Hancock County Council: 5/13/26

Hancock Co. Council

05/13/2026

Terry Bynum

 Business as usual.  Spent some time fixing mistakes in the budgets of facilities and Hiway, and moving money from fund to fund to straighten things out. 

Most interesting info was from Nicole Byerly in Auditor’s office.  She presented 7 CF-1 submissions to the council.  

When a business comes into the county and wants to ask for a tax abatement, they file an SB-1 request, which details how many employees they project they will have, and how much the salaries will be.  Once the county grants the abatement, each year for the life of the abatement, the company has to file a CF-1, in which they state what their current employee numbers are, and what their salaries are.  It’s way to make sure the business fulfills the promises/projections from the original application.  If they don’t file the forms on time, or the information is not in line with their SB-1, the county council can find them in non-compliance.  When that happens, the businesses are contacted, and a process begins, which could end with the business losing the abatement(this rarely happens).  

Of the 7 presented today (and there will be many more), the council approved 4 as being in compliance, and asked the auditor to notify the other 3 that they are not currently in compliance, and they need to appear before the council to explain what’s going on.  Many of the non-compliant businesses are the spec warehouses in the county.  One of the irregularities that Byerly pointed out, was one of the businesses appears to simply copy the info from last year's forms to this year’s (and they’ve apparently done that for 4 years in a row).  Council was not pleased–stating that if the business wants the abatement, they should take the time to do the paperwork. 

Another item of interest for the future–Gary Pool (hiway dept), talked about President Trump’s statement that he might suspend the federal gas tax.  Pool says if that happens long term, it will affect the status of planned hiway projects in Hancock County.  They are beginning to look at which projects they may have to cancel/put off, if this happens. 

The prosecutor’s office requested 2 new positions in the 2027 budget–one for an attorney focused on juvenile crime, and one for a paralegal to assist. Total cost for salaries would be upwards of $150,000

And the board also approved allowing the county to spend current funds for some capital projects and repair that is time-sensitive, with the reimbursement of those expenses coming out of the soon to be sold 2026 General Obligation bond.