The County Budget
This Year · FY2026–27
$1.5083 per $100 of assessed value
Bedford County's current fiscal year began July 1, 2026. Commissioners adopted $198,205,379 in total appropriations and set the rate at $1.5083, down from $2.3252. Here is how the levy divides each dollar:
A lower rate does not mean a lower tax bill. 2026 was a countywide reappraisal year. Tennessee assigns each reappraised county a state-certified tax rate calculated to raise about the same money from the new values that the old rate raised from the old values. The commission adopted the certified rate exactly, so this is NOT a tax cut — the rate fell because appraised values rose. A property owner whose appraisal moved with the county average should see little change in their bill. Do not present $2.3252 and $1.5083 as a before/after on the same appraised value; that implies a 35% cut that did not happen.
| Fund | Rate (per $100 assessed) | Share |
|---|---|---|
| County General | $0.9276 | 61¢ |
| Schools | $0.4022 | 27¢ |
| Debt Service | $0.0973 | 6¢ |
| Highways | $0.0584 | 4¢ |
| Capital Projects | $0.0228 | 2¢ |
| Total | $1.5083 | 100¢ |
Appropriations by fund, FY2026–27
| Fund | Appropriation | Property tax levy? |
|---|---|---|
| General Purpose School Fund | $106,880,711 | Yes |
| General Fund | $43,637,965 | Yes |
| General Debt Service | $22,215,494 | Yes |
| Child Nutrition | $8,433,071 | No |
| Education Capital Projects | $6,590,432 | No |
| Highway/Public Works | $5,055,535 | Yes |
| County Capital Projects | $4,719,639 | Yes |
| School Age Care Program | $672,282 | No |
| Drug Control Fund | $250 | No |
| Total | $198,205,379 |
These are total appropriations per fund — every dollar the fund may spend from all revenue sources. They are NOT property tax revenue, which is only one input. The General Fund is appropriated $43,637,965 while its FY2025–26 property tax revenue was $19,305,000. Do not substitute one for the other. Four funds receive no property tax levy at all.
Not yet verified against the resolution. Resolution No. 27-1 (tax levy) and the appropriations resolution are still not archived — they are inside the county's June 30, 2026 commission packet (Commission Packet 6-30-26.pdf). Per-fund Current Property Tax detail lines and the FY2027 penny value are not yet extracted, so the revenue ÷ penny = rate reconciliation cannot run for this year.
How to Read These Numbers
Money in equals money out — by design
The county's budget balances the way the budget book itself balances each fund: what a fund may spend equals its estimated revenues plus its fund balance — the county's term for money already on hand from prior years. Appropriations are spending ceilings, not predictions, and revenue estimates run conservative, so budgets routinely plan to use balances; how the year actually went arrives later in the audited financial report.
For FY2026–27 the nine funds' estimated revenues total $174,021,391, and $24,183,988 comes from fund balances, fund by fund:
- General Purpose School Fund — $11,345,405 applied from balance (budget book, PDF p.56)
- General Fund — $7,705,411 applied from balance (budget book, PDF p.2)
- County Capital Projects Fund — $1,506,316 applied from balance (budget book, PDF p.114)
- Education Capital Projects Fund — $1,390,432 applied from balance (budget book, PDF p.111)
- General Debt Service Fund — $1,283,781 applied from balance (budget book, PDF p.107)
- Child Nutrition Fund — $919,071 applied from balance (budget book, PDF p.90)
- Highway/Public Works Fund — $112,865 applied from balance (budget book, PDF p.100)
- Drug Control Fund — plans to add $2,750 to balance (budget book, PDF p.87)
- School-Age Care Program — plans to add $76,543 to balance (budget book, PDF p.95)
Money that moves between county funds
About $7.9 million appears twice in the book's own pages: the General Debt Service Fund budgets $5,200,000 of donated capital-projects money and $2,694,000 of other financing uses (PDF p.107), and the same amounts appear as incoming money in the Education Capital Projects Fund (p.111) and the County Capital Projects Fund (p.114). The funding-sources bar keeps the county's own figures and discloses the correspondence rather than editing it out.
What these views cover — and don't
Both homepage views cover the nine county-adopted funds, including the school system's four (General Purpose School, Child Nutrition, School-Age Care, Education Capital Projects). They are plans for the year underway. The audited views elsewhere on this page cover a different scope — the county government's own funds, as the state-audited financial report presents them — and the two should not be added or directly compared without saying so.
Read by computer from the county's official scanned documents — not hand-verified. The document is the record. Report errors: corrections@openbedford.org.
Bedford County publishes its adopted budget books (FY2021 through FY2027) and its annual audited financial reports back to FY2019. Open Bedford's budget dashboards are built from official documents — and only official documents.
The Audited Record · FY2024–25
Everything above is the FY2026–27 plan — the year underway, the same nine-fund picture as the homepage. The band below is a different thing: the county government's last audited year, FY2024–25, as the state-audited financial report presents it — county government only, schools report separately. Plans are spending ceilings; the audit is what actually happened.
← Budget › Where it goesWhere it comes fromWhat property tax pays for
Where does the money go? Where does the money come from? What does property tax pay for?
Bedford County government spent $61,072,078 in FY2024–25 — here's where it went Bedford County government took in $65,021,692 in FY2024–25 — here's where it came from Property tax raised $31,390,200 in FY2025–26 — here's the fund it went to
- Public safety ($15.3M)
- Public health and welfare ($8.7M)
- Principal on debt ($8.3M)
- Capital projects ($6.8M)
- Highways ($4.6M)
- General government ($4.5M)
- Interest on debt ($4.1M)
- Other (6) ($8.6M)
Other includes: Finance $3,033,507 · Administration of justice $2,855,918 · Other operations $2,019,389 · Agriculture and natural resources $297,926 · Social, cultural and recreational $222,435 · Other debt service $195,205
Public safety is 25% of county spending — the largest single function. Hover any segment for its exact figure and share.
- Local taxes ($41.9M)
- State of Tennessee ($7.8M)
- Other local revenues ($6.8M)
- Charges for current services ($3.3M)
- Other (5) ($5.3M)
Other includes: Fees from county officials $3,187,605 · Federal government $591,433 · Other governments & citizens groups $547,242 · Fines, forfeitures and penalties $492,248 · Licenses and permits $483,023
Local taxes are 64% of what the county government takes in — the line residents have the most direct say over, since the commission sets the rate every June.
- County General Fund ($19.3M)
- General Purpose School Fund ($8.4M)
- General Debt Service Fund ($2.0M)
- Highway/Public Works Fund ($1.2M)
- County Capital Projects Fund ($475K)
Property tax is roughly a sixth of what the county government takes in — the rest is state funding, sales tax, fees and charges. Every fund above is levied at its own rate, set by the commission each June, which is why the county has five rates rather than one. See the rates.
⚠ Different year and basis from the other two views. These are FY2025–26 figures from the county budget book, reconciled against Resolution No. 26-1 — the county does not publish property tax by fund for FY2024–25. Do not add them to the audited totals.
FY2024–25 audited actuals from Exhibit C-3 of the county's annual audited financial report, audited and published by the Tennessee Comptroller · both views come from that one statement · county government only — schools report separately
Last Year · FY2025–26 — the year with verified fund detail
$2.3252 per $100 of assessed value
The county-wide property tax rate, fixed by Resolution No. 26-1, adopted 18–0 by roll-call vote on June 26, 2025. Here is how the resolution divides each dollar of the levy among county funds:
Click any segment of the bar to drill into that fund.
| Fund | Rate (per $100 assessed) |
|---|---|
| County General Fund (101) | $1.4300 |
| General Purpose School Fund (141) | $0.6200 |
| General Debt Service Fund (151) | $0.1500 |
| Highway/Public Works Fund (131) | $0.0900 |
| County Capital Projects Fund (178) | $0.0352 |
| Total | $2.3252 |
Cents per dollar are each fund's share of the total rate, apportioned to whole cents so the five values sum to exactly 100¢. They are not simply rounded: County General's share is 61.50009, which would round up to 62 and make the set total 101¢. All five rates are verified against the county's FY2025–26 budget book — three are printed directly, and all five are confirmed by the book's own revenue figures (each fund's property tax estimate divided by the county's printed penny value). The state's CTAS compilation agrees.
Drill Down: The Five Funds
County General Fund (101)
The county's main operating fund. It pays for general county government: the Sheriff's Office and jail, courts and court clerks, the county mayor's office and administration, elections, property assessment, public health and welfare services, parks, libraries, and other county departments outside schools and highways.
Property tax to this fund, five years
General Purpose School Fund (141)
Operating support for the Bedford County school system — the county's local property tax contribution to running schools. (Schools also receive state funding and local sales tax; those flows appear in the school budget, not this levy.)
Property tax to this fund, five years
General Debt Service Fund (151)
Pays principal and interest on Bedford County's borrowed money — the bonds and notes issued for past building and infrastructure projects.
Property tax to this fund, five years
Highway/Public Works Fund (131)
The Highway Department — maintaining county roads and bridges. The property tax share here is a supplement; road funding also comes from state highway revenues shown in the fund's own budget pages.
Property tax to this fund, five years
County Capital Projects Fund (178)
Major one-time purchases and construction — county buildings, public safety projects and equipment, vehicles, and other capital improvements budgeted by project.
Property tax to this fund, five years
Current Property Tax revenue by fiscal year, as printed on each fund's revenue page of the FY2025–26 budget book. FY22–FY24 are audited figures; FY25 is the amended budget; FY26 is the estimate. Each row cross-checks against the book's own printed year-over-year increase column.
One cent ($.01) on the tax rate is estimated to raise about $135,000 in FY2025–26, per the county budget book. Line-item detail within each fund comes next, as budget-book pages are parsed and hand-verified.
Why? · The FY23 Levy Shift
Why did the General Fund jump from $13.5M to $19.2M in FY23?
Because on June 28, 2022, after one of the most contested budget nights on record, the commission raised the General Fund's share of the levy from a proposed $1.10 to $1.43. The full story, from the official minutes:
- The 2021 countywide reappraisal had reset the certified tax rate lower; a balanced, no-increase budget at $1.9652 total was the starting motion.
- Mayor Graham sent commissioners a letter identifying unmet needs, and a wage-and-hour study found county employee pay required a $0.32 correction to retain staff — EMS and public-safety pay drew repeated concern.
- The no-increase rate failed 9–9. A $2.3552 rate failed 9–9–1. A middle amendment failed 9–9.
- The compromise — $2.3252, with General at $1.4300 — passed 12–5–1 after stripping $210K for the Shelbyville/Bedford partnership and a lobbyist.
- What the increase funded, per the sponsors: the $0.32 employee pay correction, a $200K match toward a $2M industrial-park sewer grant, $100K in business-park survey and legal costs, a $91,500 volunteer firefighter incentive, $25K for tourism, and 3¢ more for highways.
- Commissioners recorded arguments on every side: employee retention and services (Vick, Pinson, Brown), the burden on fixed-income seniors amid inflation (Anderson), and open-meetings process objections (Farrar, Mark Thomas). All are preserved in the minutes.
- That $2.3252 rate has not changed since.
Coming Once Parsed
Department budgets
Budget vs. actual by department — Schools, Sheriff, Highway, EMS, and more — with year-over-year trends from the county's budget books.
Budget amendments
Every mid-year amendment tracked from commission packets, so changes don't disappear into PDFs.
Historical trends
Six years of budget books charted — where spending grew, where it shrank, and what changed.
A note on limits: Bedford County does not publish transaction- or vendor-level spending online. Detail at that level requires public records requests, which Open Bedford will log publicly if pursued.