Modest Tax Hike Proposed in Crockett

Proposal Increases Property Tax by $8.02 Annually

By Will Johnson
Messenger Reporter

CROCKETT – A modest tax rate increase was proposed to and approved by the Crockett City Council during a council session held on Monday, July 30.

Following a contentious first half of the meeting – covered in a separate article – City Administrator John Angerstein presented the council members with a tax analysis of several different tax rates.

“The current tax rate is 0.586094 per $100 of property valuation. If we remain at that tax rate, it will provide $1,978 less than in this current year. The certified (property) values came in at a slight fraction less than last year,” Angerstein said.

The next tax rate discussed was the effective rate which would provide the same revenue as Fiscal Year (FY) 2018.

“The rate would go to 0.587041, which is one-tenth of a cent higher than the current rate. Based on a property value of $75,000, this will increase everyone’s property taxes by $0.71 per year. This would result in a $23,718 shortfall in meeting the proposed budget,” Angerstein explained.

Angerstein said the required rate to fund the proposed budget would be 0.596791 per $100 of property valuation.

This would provide a $23,273 increase in revenue and would increase a homeowner’s property tax by $8.02 annually, he added.

The rollback rate of 0.620675 per $100 of property valuation would provide the city with an additional $74,256 in revenue and would increase a homeowner’s property tax – based on a property value of $75,000 – by $25.94 annually.

“This meets the proposed budget and provides an additional $50,538 surplus that could be added towards our street department’s budget,” Angerstein said.

After the tax analysis overview, Angerstein yielded the floor to Crockett Street Manger Gerald Colter for an update on where the city streets are and how the city plans to move forward on street repair.

“We have a great task in front of us. I truly believe we can get our streets turned around and headed in the right direction,” he said.

Following his presentation, the tax rate discussion continued.

“On estimate, if we work on the streets in-house, without contractors, we are looking at somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000 per street. Obviously, the longer streets are going to be more expensive,” Angerstein said.

The city administrator said the proposed FY 2019 budget had $200,000 earmarked for street repair and if the council decided to go to the rollback rate, it would generate an extra $50,000 which could be used for street repair.

A brief discussion was held on the various tax rates described by Angerstein before a motion was made, seconded and unanimously approved to set the proposed tax rate at 0.596791 per $100 of property valuation, just over a one cent increase over the current tax rate.

In other matters brought before the council:

Public hearings on the proposed tax rate and budget for FY 2019 were scheduled for Aug. 13 and Aug. 20.
Woodrow Jones and Chris von Doenhoff were appointed to the Crockett Economic and Industrial Development Corporation Board of Directors.
The consulting firm of Gary R. Traylor and Associates was selected as the administrative consultant for application preparation and project administration in conjunction with a 2018 TCDBG-CEF application.

Will Johnson may be contacted via e-mail at [email protected].