Join Aaron Keck every Tuesday afternoon for Chatham County Roundup, a recurring series that shines the spotlight on Chatham County through engaging discussions and interviews with locals, newsmakers, officials and more. 

 

This week on Chatham County Roundup, join Aaron Keck for a conversation with county commissioner Karen Howard concerning Chatham county’s budget talks, why Chatham’s over-reliance on property taxes may have a silver lining and what ongoing public reactions to COVID-19 look like in Chatham.

“I think people are still, for the most part, wary of the risk, using good judgment,” said Howard. “I have been out a couple of times and to see that the restaurants and eateries really are taking this quite seriously … was reassuring because it’s such an uncertain landscape. We’re learning new things all the time and, but we also can’t stay in shutdown mode indefinitely. So, it’s good to see people being responsible, and businesses being responsible, and coming into this new space slowly.”

Howard also spoke on how Chatham’s existing tax structure assisted in partially protecting from the initial financial blow of COVID-19, and what the future could look like when it comes to Chatham’s fiscal planning.

“One of the things that has been an ongoing challenge for Chatham County actually has turned out to be one of the things that softened the blow, the immediate economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, in that we’re not heavily reliant on retail tax or sales tax,” said Howard. “We are heavily reliant on property tax, which is not ideal … but we don’t have a lot of retail and commercial in Chatham County. So in this initial phase, at least we are somewhat buffered.”

Listen below for the full conversation, and tune in weekly for conversations about Chatham County happenings, people, news and more.

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