Camden County has budgeted $300,000 in next year's budget for a looming legal battle over a proposed Navy pilot training field in the county.

Even so, Camden taxpayers will notice no change in their property tax bill if the Board of Commissioners adopts the proposed $10 million county budget for the coming fiscal year.

County Manager Randell Woodruff outlined the proposed budget in an interview earlier this week.

According to Woodruff, Camden's property tax rate of 59 cents per $100 of valuation would stay the same even though county spending is proposed to increase by 13.6 percent. More than half of the proposed increase is for non-discretionary items like fuel, property insurance, workers compensation and employees' health insurance.

"There are a lot of things that have increased this year that were beyond our control," Woodruff said.

Camden plans to pay for the increases, as well as the legal fight over the Navy outlying landing field, from the county's $4 million reserve fund, he said.

"We knew when we took on (the OLF) fight that we were going to have to go into our reserves," Woodruff said.

The increases in Camden's proposed budget come at the same time the county has seen significant reductions in land-transfer and sales-tax revenues because of the declining economy.

The county's proposed budget calls for $1.17 million in new general fund expenditures, Woodruff said. Included is $50,000 that will go toward raising the salaries of the county's 75 workers if a $11,700 pay study, also included in the budget, determines the increases are warranted.

Camden Sheriff Tony Perry had requested two new deputies, including a school resource officer, but those have been trimmed from the proposed budget.

"This is just a year where we can't afford to create a lot of new positions," Woodruff said.

The budget does include, however, $25,103 for a new half-a-year position for the Register of Deeds office and $31,383 for a new parks and recreation department position.

A public hearing on the budget scheduled for Monday has been postponed as the county compiles clearer spending numbers, Woodruff said.

"We're just at the starting point," he said. "We'll probably make some more cuts."

Other proposed new general fund expenditures include:

• $75,000 for software to improve communications equipment for the sheriff's department;

• $50,000 toward a community park;

• $70,000 for the county's new wastewater system;

• $25,000 for an economic incentive fund to pay for wastewater fees for new businesses;

• $10,000 for fuel costs;

• $25,957 for property insurance;

• $103,708 for workers compensation; and

• $40,732 for employees health insurance.