The Tioga City Council Monday moved forward with a proposed 10 cent-per $100 of valuation tax increase.
If eventually ratified, the city property tax rate will be set at .493255/$100 of valuation. This is an increase for the current rate of .394634/$100 of valuation. Mayor Craig Jezek said the increase would be the first local tax hike in several years.
“Property appraisals have gone up, but we’ve been lowering tax rates,” Jezek said. “That’s what is called a no new revenue budget. We’ve offset the increase in appraisals with lower rates and essentially absorbed it into the budget. We can’t afford to do that anymore.”
Alderman Heather Nesmith said the city tax rate was .523/$100 in 2019.
“We have incrementally worked our way to the rate we have now,” Nesmith said. “But we have not realized any new revenue as a result.”
Jezek said the increase in city income will be dedicated to fixing drainage problems and streets across town, as well as increase salaries at City Hall.
“We have some problems we can no longer avoid,” Jezek said. “We believe this is the best use of new funds… we all know the cost of everything has gone up. If we don’t get ahead of it we’ll just fall further behind.”
Now that the proposed rate has been approved by the council, the next step is holding a public hearing on the proposed rate. Once the hearing is held, the rate can be ratified.
City Secretary Donna Carney said the public hearing will be set for Sept. 9 as part of the next regular city council meeting. The vote to ratify will then take place later at the same meeting. Required public notice for the public hearing will be posted in the Whitesboro News-Record in the coming weeks.
In other business Monday night, the council moved forward with a plan to convert the existing water meters to an Auto Read System that would greatly decrease the amount of manpower required to read water meters. Commonly known as “smart meters,” the new technology allows city staff to pinpoint water leaks and issues in real-time.
Most of the funds needed for the conversion will come from the state provided by the Coronavirus and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds.
Source: Freepik.com