Tax settlements bring in extra funds for city

An increase in property values in 2018 has led to a surge in revenues to multiple funds for the city.

An increase in property values in 2018 has led to a surge in revenues to multiple funds for the city of Vermilion that were received last month.

Finance director Amy Hendricks said increases in property tax settlements resulted in an average of 8 percent increases for five of the city’s funds.

“The changes in the revenue are due to, for the most part, increases in property tax revenue that are associated with the increase in property values that the county auditors have placed on both residential and commercial properties in our community,” Hendricks said during a Sept. 9 City Council meeting.

Those specific funds include the general fund, which generated an additional $170,470, the parks capital with over $13,000, the fire operating and fire capital both generating an additional $22,150 and the police pension with over $6,600.

The new parks operating levy for the city also generated over $20,000 over the initial estimates for the first year of collections, Hendricks said.

“That’s some good news and both of those parks numbers have been provided to the chair of the parks and recs boards,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll be getting that information this week as well.”

In addition, Council suspended rules and approved a resolution to adopt the tax rates provided by the Erie County Budget Commission.

Hendricks said the rates were not sent to the city until after the commission’s last meeting Aug. 27 and rates are due Sept. 30.

“There were no surprises in it that we didn’t anticipate, as far as tax rates go,” she said.