Veto overridden, millage rate set for 2018
♦ Taxes to see slight increase with new rate of 11.475 set by County Commission majority
There was no discussion and only a quick vote to wrap up the decision that Polk County residents are going to see an increase on their tax bills when they come in the mail later this month, but likely only a slight one.
Commissioners voted during a special called session on Aug. 28 4-1 to override a veto made on an 11.475 millage rate in a meeting that lasted just a few minutes.
Commission Chair Jennifer Hulsey said it was her understanding before the vote was taken that no discussion was required since the vote was to override her veto on the amount of millage rate the county was going to set for the year, after several were put forth but voted down by commissioners during their Aug. 22 meeting.
“I checked the rules, so we don’t have to do that,” she explained. “It’s my job also to sum up that I did veto the mill increase rate, and you all are trying to override my veto.”
The same group of commissioners who approved the millage rate increase voted for the override of the veto.
Among those was Commissioner Chuck Thaxton, who said he was happy the issue was finally coming to a rest.
“I’m glad that we can move on and try to get some other stuff done,” he said.
Hulsey said in a statement that it was “an important vote. And I felt it was important to challenge it.”
“I encourage our voters to stay informed on what is going on, and I will continue to work for the people,” she added.
Other commissioners were sought for comment and chose not, or did not get back before press time over the weekend.
The vote last Tuesday brought to a close a process that extended the spring months all the way through the summer right before the deadline to get a millage rate set, and tax bills printed and sent out to people.
The actual rate is 14.111 with rollback of 2.636 mills to end up at the 11.475 millage rate that taxpayers will actually have to pay on their bills.
For some perspective, a mill at the current value sits at around
$934,000 of income to the county, so it should generate around $10,717,650 in revenue.
During the Aug. 28 vote, it also approved $1,562,593.70 to go toward funding of the Polk County Police Department.
Following the meeting on
Thursday, Aug. 30, Denton said he and Finance Director Muriel Dulaney were still in the process of reconciling the new millage rate and increased funds generated to see how much that would offset the need to use the landfill funds.
Based on previous calculations of millage rates and what t hey would generate that Denton presented earlier in the month, it should fall
around $10.2 million in actual revenue, plus or minus for how much the county gets back from taxpayers in real versus projected property tax payments for the year.
If everyone were to pay their taxes on time, the county would get around $10,717,650 generated from this year’s millage rate to go along with the county’s overall revenue sources for the FY 2019 budget approved during the Aug. 22 meeting.
Not everyone pays their taxes on time, so the county uses a 95 percent return rate for determining their projected income for the year off of how much people pay.
In that information that Denton calculated, it had optional return rates of half mill rate increases up to the advertised rate of 11.500 mills, just slightly above where property tax rates were set for 2018.
During the Aug. 22 meeting,
Commissioners voted to approve a budget that used landfill fund balance to cover costs without having yet set the millage rate. The Commission will have to go back and approve amendments to the budget to account for the additional millage rate in order to keep within the guidelines of state requirements on maintaining a balanced budget.