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The Hamblen County Commission begins its budget process for the 2024 fiscal year, the theme being “Our local economy is strong.”

Hamblen County Mayor presented before the commission discussing the past year and his hopes for the future.

“Our local economy is strong,” Brittain said. “You may hear from national news that the sky is falling, but let me reassure you that East Tennessee and Hamblen County’s economy is strong.

“We have a lot going both in the public sector and private sector,” he said. “We have the new justice center project construction moving along, the Morristown Landing has opened in the last few months, the new health department location identified and is moving forward, the new Lincoln Heights Elementary School project and the landfill expansion which is infrastructure that is needed for our growing community.”

Brittain mentioned employment and how the county has bounced back from the pandemic.

“Our economy as far as employment has returned to pre-COVID employment with the employment rate being at 3.4%,” he said. “If you want a job you can find a job in Hamblen County, we have hundreds throughout the county.”

He described the growth the county has seen over the past year through several business sectors.

“We have had growth in multiple sectors of the economy, in manufacturing, housing, hospitality with the new restaurants and medical.”

“In manufacturing in the last year we have had 27 companies expand in some form or by making investments in their companies,” he said. “Also in the manufacturing sector we had $180 million dollars of investments and had 670 jobs be created or companies commit to creating jobs.”

“Van Hool is still on the board,” he said “That’s the bus manufacture from Belgium and their plan right now is to start construction in 2025 and hopefully be manufacturing buses and travel buses in late 2025 or early 2026 as the economy continues to recover from the pandemic.”

Brittain praised the local education system and secondary education institutions in the county.

“One of the things we should all be proud of with education is we are home to the top community college in the state and the top technical school in the state,” he said, “Which mean we have some amazing job training skills programs going on in this community.”

“Plus the work both Walters State Community College and TCAT Morristown do with our school system with dual enrollment.”

Brittain then focused on transportation plans for the county.

“On state route 34 or highway 11E, 95% of the property has been purchased for the four lane highway with a turning lane in the center that will go from the City of Morristown Fire Hall on Jessy Road to Morris Boulevard where it meets 11E.”

“TDOT is going to start this summer and fall destroying some of the mobile homes and buildings they purchased that are off of the railroad tracks and next spring when they bid the construction project, the buildings right on the tracks will be demolished.”

“The intersection of 25E at the East Tennessee Progress Center will be redesigned which will help develop traffic moving out of the industrial park towards the interstate and that will be completed by the time Van Hool is set to be up and running.”

He then discussed the county’s residential and commercial growth.

“All of you know how many houses are going up in the county,” he said. “Last year we have had about $40 million dollars in residential investment and $130 in commercial investment in both single and multi family homes.”

Brittain discussed a survey completed by 300 county citizens on what they believe are important issues the county needs to focus on in the next coming year.

“The first issue was garbage pickup and sanitation, the second being the highway department and maintaining the roads and third was education,” he said. “The question about what services need more funding was highway.”

Brittain explained the budget documenmt is fluid and with each meeting, the commission will meet with departments to make adjustments to the budget.

The commission will hear from each department to discuss their budget for the next fiscal year. The first will be June 1 for Hamblen County Schools.

The county’s goal is to adopt the budget on June 29 before the next fiscal starts. For more coverage see upcoming editions of the Citizen Tribune.