Warren County residents will see a small increase in tax bills to fund public schools in the 2012-13 budget approved Monday by the Warren County Board of Supervisors. A final decision on tax rates for residents of the City of Vicksburg was expected today.

By a 4-1 vote, the Warren County Board of Supervisors OK’d a $14.8 million budget for next fiscal year that held steady the general county millage and other services funded by taxpayers. It contains a 1.21-mill increase for the Vicksburg Warren School District necessary to raise the $26.2 million requested in August by the school board. It translates into a $12.10 increase on tax bills for every $100,000 in assessed value on homes, businesses and agricultural land.

The new fiscal year starts Oct. 1; tax bills are issued in December.

Vicksburg’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen had been expected to vote on the city’s proposed $28.89 million spending plan, but delayed it until today.

By state law, spending plans must be approved by the end of the week.

District 1 Supervisor John Arnold was the lone vote against the budget. After the vote, he took issue with the rest of the board’s decision to direct $401,567 from revenue the county receives from Vicksburg’s four operating casinos to pay for eight new vehicles to replace high-mileage cruisers and a backup radio system for the Sheriff’s Department.

“I’m not satisfied with how we spend gaming money,” Arnold said. “We’ve cut positions, but we’ve increased the sheriff’s budget from the gaming fund.”

Overall, the county’s gaming fund is expected to net $2.26 million in fiscal 2013. Spending from gaming revenue — usually the source for routine county road improvements from year to year — will top $2.3 million, including $753,493 in new items that include the cruisers and technical equipment, matching money for a federal block grant to resurface China Grove Road, a tandem truck for the Road Department, subscription fee for the CodeRed emergency alert system and renovations to records rooms at the chancery clerk’s office. “Road money should have stayed with the roads,” Arnold said, adding he wanted to see more lanes striped on county roads. Road and bridge repairs are pegged at $640,000 in next year’s gaming fund, down from $900,000 this year. Work is in progress to resurface Redbud Street, Gowall Road, Shadow Wood and Estelle drives. Parts of Boy Scout, Tiffintown and Dana roads are planned by the end of calendar 2012.

A $30,100 subsidy for NRoute and $336,000 in support for the Warren County Parks and Recreation Commission will continue to come from gaming funds.

The budget version that passed leaves a $22,628 general fund surplus, attained through hiring freezes in vacant positions, more tax revenue from public utilities and more money from increased fees for building permits.

Full-time positions in emergency management and the tax assessor’s office and a part-time slot in the tax collector’s office will go unfilled this year. They represent $114,722 in salaries that won’t be paid. Seven more to stay unfilled are in the sheriff’s department and include a jail population manager. General funds for the sheriff’s department in the proposed budget are nearly level to this year, at $3.3 million.

Fees to construct buildings on property outside Vicksburg will net about $9,000 in extra revenue to the county, based on current activity, county officials said. The budget approved Monday indicates the regular rate would be $15, up from $5. Fees to build structures in a floodplain would be $25, but a public hearing would be required for that change because it is part of an ordinance.

During a 15-minute public comment session, Bill Bradley, a Lake Park Estates resident, voiced frustration over county employees driving alone in trucks, which are special-package pickups purchased through a state contract from a sole vendor. Dodge 1500 pickups in use by county supervisors, Road Department personnel and other department heads were issued in 2011.

“We have a lot of new vehicles riding around in the county and they’re quad cab, extended cab,” Bradley said. “And some of them are very nice pickup trucks and you only see only one person riding in them.”

Support for 14 charitable agencies funded last year with general fund dollars was kept the same, at $189,880. Funding for each is secured annually with “local and private” bills in the Legislature, which is required to legalize public funding for nonprofit groups.