At a Thursday morning work session, the city council voted to call a public hearing to potentially further dampen tax hikes for Fiscal Year 2025. By that evening, council members changed their minds.
By a 3-1 vote in an emergency meeting just before 6 p.m. at City Hall, the council rescinded its work session vote and canceled a public hearing on the millage it had scheduled for Sept. 6. It also pulled the public notices that would have bound the council to hold the hearing.
The action means the city’s previously approved ad valorem tax rate of 53 mills stands, and the council can approve the FY 2025 budget at its regular meeting Tuesday. If the Sept. 6 hearing would have occurred, the council could have further lowered the millage, but by state law it could not have approved the budget until Sept. 13.
The 53-mill tax rate is already lower than the 54.11 mills it levied this fiscal year. The council was considering an even lower rate after Dispatch reporting last weekend showed projected tax rates for the city, county and Columbus Municipal School District would increase a city homeowner’s tax bill by 21%.
But after hearing from Lowndes County Tax Assessor Greg Andrews during Thursday’s work session, Ward 1 Councilwoman Ethel Stewart, Ward 3 Councilman Rusty Greene and Ward 6 Councilwoman Jacqueline DiCicco, all of whom voted Thursday morning to reconsider the millage, thought better of it.
“It wouldn’t change (the tax bill) for citizens enough to advertise and have another public hearing,” Stewart told The Dispatch after the emergency meeting.
Ward 4 Councilman Pierre Beard opposed canceling next week’s public hearing, and Ward 5 Councilman Stephen Jones didn’t attend the emergency meeting. Vice Mayor Joseph Mickens, who represents Ward 2, could not vote because he was presiding over the meeting in place of Mayor Keith Gaskin, who has been out the last two weeks due to a health concern.
Work session numbers
With reassessment this year, the county is having to adopt an updated manual from the Mississippi Department of Revenue. That manual covers everything from a building’s base value per square foot to the materials used in construction, and it raised home values by an average of 18%, Andrews said.
A mill measures ad valorem taxes on real and personal property. One mill generally equals $10 in taxes per every $100,000 of home value and $15 per every $100,000 of commercial value.
Between the city, county and CMSD, a city resident paid 164.33 mills in taxes this fiscal year. To generate the same level of revenue next fiscal year, Andrews said each entity would have to drop its mill rate by 18%, which equates to a total reduction of 29.5 mills. As it stands, the total drop would be only 2.22 mills, with CMSD only giving back 0.83 and the county planning only a 0.28-mill decrease.
“That’s not anywhere near 18%,” Andrews told council members.
At Thursday’s work session, Andrews showed councilmen an example of what he meant.
The owner of a home in Columbus valued at $172,540 in 2023 paid $2,530.50 in taxes that year, if the property did not have a homestead exemption, Andrews presented. That same home in 2024, according to Andrews’ presentation, is valued at $195,280.
If projected tax rates stay as is, that home carries a total tax burden of $2,865.67 – an increase of $335.17. City taxes account for $101.37 (about 30%) of that increase.
If the city dropped to 51.5 mills, Andrews presented, that homeowner would see a $307.14 increase, with the city only accounting for $73.34 (about 24%) of that.
A homeowner with homestead exemption would see less of an increase.
“Y’all can only control what y’all can control and that’s the city portion,” Andrews said.
Lowering the millage to 50.13 would generate essentially even revenue for the city, he added.
Jones, who has advocated for a revenue neutral approach since budget discussions began earlier this month, said that’s what the county and school district should also consider. He said the new MDOR manual gave entities “an excuse” to slightly lower their millage while still raising citizens’ taxes.
“Everybody should have looked at it as a revenue (neutral) approach,” Jones said. “If you weren’t going to raise mills before this year, then … you should have went down the 18% it would have (taken) to stay the same.”
Effect on the budget
With 53 mills, the city would generate an additional $620,000 in ad valorem revenue compared to FY 2024.
At 51.5 mills, a rate heavily discussed Thursday morning, the city would generate about $297,000 in new revenue.
Chief Financial Officer Jim Brigham warned the difficulty that would cause the city greatly outweighs any benefit to the taxpayers. He used Andrews’ example as proof.
“On this example that we’re using this morning, if you reduce it from the 53 mills, which I’ve proposed, to 51.5 mills, you save that city homeowner $28 a year,” Brigham said during the work session.
Speaking to The Dispatch after the meeting, he said cutting the millage that low could have jeopardized planned raises in next year’s budget, including raising the lowest paid 40-hour per week employees to $15 an hour.
Alternatively, he said, it could mean slashing planned vehicle purchases or cutting outside appropriations to organizations like the chamber of commerce, United Way, Humane Society or library.
“… It would be good for the county to go down more,” he added. “The city can’t take it all.”
County response to calls for lower taxes
Speaking to The Dispatch on Thursday afternoon, Lowndes County Board of Supervisors President Trip Hairston said he understands the calls to lower taxes.
Inflation has made everything cost more for everybody, he realizes, but those increases “don’t stop at the government’s door.”
The county stands to get $1.7 million in new ad valorem revenue next year if it approved the 0.28-mill rate decrease at its Tuesday meeting.
Hairston remains adamant the county needs the money.
“We’re not looking at adding any new services,” he said. “We’re trying to maintain the status quo. I think we do a pretty good job of that. If you dial 911, people respond. When the sheriff’s called, they respond. When people have potholes in their road, we respond. … (We) have to take into consideration what services we’re providing now and what we’d have to cut if we decided to make a significant decrease in the tax burden.”
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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