A “serious split” among aldermen on whether to raise the ad valorem tax rate caused them to delay voting on the budget Tuesday evening.
Instead, aldermen opted to mull the issue a little longer and finalize the Fiscal Year 2020 budget on Sept. 17, two days after the deadline set by the state. They also set a work session for 4 p.m. Thursday to bore into budget details.
Aldermen are considering a proposed 1.5-mill increase, from 26.63 mills to 28.13 mills, which would generate $400,000 in new revenue. That revenue, Mayor Lynn Spruill said, would cover pay raises for some city employees, the cost of some new hires and equipment.
“I think our future is important enough that a mill and a half is not too much to ask, so let me say now that I think this is an extremely important vote,” Spruill said.
Mills are used to calculate property taxes, and the city determines each year how many property tax mills to levy. If this increase passes, the average tax bill would increase by 1 percent – or $10 per every $1,000 a property owner has been paying in taxes.
So far, Aldermen Sandra Sistrunk and Jason Walker, of Ward 2 and 4, respectively, have publicly supported the tax increase. Hamp Beatty of Ward 5 told The Dispatch he also is “all in.”
Ben Carver, Ward 1, has expressed reservations about the mill hike, while Ward 6 Aldermen Roy A. Perkins and Ward 7’s Henry Vaughn have routinely opposed tax increases.
David Little, of Ward 3, has not publicly expressed how he will vote.
Ward 4 Alderman Jason Walker proposed the Thursday work session to look more closely at the budget and see if the board can find ways to fund pay raises and equipment without raising taxes. The board can only vote on the budget in a regular meeting, but it can discuss and make changes to the budget at a work session, City Attorney Chris Latimer said.
While five aldermen voted to convene for the work session, Perkins and Vaughn opposed.
“I think (a work session) will give the board a much better confidence level that it is appropriate for them to support a tax increase,” said Ward 2 Alderman Sandra Sistrunk, the board’s budget chair. “Because not everybody’s as knee-deep in these numbers as I am, I don’t think they believe that the money is not there.”
Boosting pay, upgrading equipment
In May, the board authorized a study of the city’s pay plan by the Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State University. The goal of the study was to help the city develop “a pay plan that is equitable to both the employees and to the taxpayers of the City,” according to Tuesday’s meeting agenda.
The study identified specific city jobs, such as utility linemen, police and firefighters, that pay below the salary rate in a similar or equivalent market, Spruill told The Dispatch. Some city jobs pay within 90 to 95 percent of the market rate and will not get a raise, but the ones from 75 to 85 percent should be boosted to that level so the city can remain competitive, she said.
Additionally, the new property tax revenue will buy a new fingerprinting machine, ransomware protection software and new cameras for the police station. The city will also replace the hot mix asphalt truck and hire two new firefighters and a new code enforcement employee.
“‘Tax’ is a word that’s gotten a really ugly connotation in government,” Sistrunk said. “I’m not quite sure where we got away from the idea that if we want services, we have to pay for them.”
Carver said he believes city workers should be paid more, but he is not sold on some of the expense line items in the budget.
“This pie is a certain size and it can be divvied up and sliced up any way,” Carver said.
Other cities roughly Starkville’s size have much higher millage rates, Beatty said. He found through research that 20 cities in Mississippi with populations between 15,000 and 50,000 people have an average rate of 43.75 mills, making Starkville’s rate one of the lowest.
Beatty agreed with Sistrunk that the city cannot meet the proposed pay raises and new purchases without a tax increase. The city also has to bring one of its fire stations up to full staff and be able to fund city employees’ health insurance, Beatty told The Dispatch after the meeting.
The city will not receive two days’ worth of taxes from license plate purchases when the board votes to pass the budget on Sept. 17, Latimer said, but that tax money “can be made up on the back end.”
The meeting included a public hearing for anyone to express their opinions on the tax increase, and the only person who spoke was former Oktibbeha County NAACP president Chris Taylor. He said he pays taxes on three Starkville properties and believes raising some city workers’ salaries is worth the cost to him.
“That small amount in order to keep the services of the people working (here), let’s give them the pay raise,” Taylor said.
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