The County Budget
Bedford County publishes annual budget books (FY2021–FY2026, plus the proposed FY2027) and state-audited financial reports back to FY2019. Open Bedford's budget dashboards are built from official documents — and only official documents.
The Property Tax Rate
$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, rounded to whole cents (rounded values sum to 100¢). 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.