The Clinton City Council agreed to lower the tax rate, but the spending reductions to reach that mandate have not been developed.
As part of Monday’s budget session the council debated lowering the tax rate. The rate in the budget that had been prepared was about 16 dollars and 63 cents per thousand dollars of taxable value. That’s about 8 cents lower than the current budget.
After hearing more budget presentations-Council Member Ed O’Neil raised the issue of lowering the tax rate. He would like eventually to get to 13 or 14 dollars per thousand dollars but would settle this year to drop the emergency levy of 27 cents and get the rate to 16 dollars and 35 cents.
The elimination of the emergency levy of 27 cents per thousand dollars of valuation means a reduction of 260-thousand dollars in expenses and saves 13 dollars a year on a home valued at 100-thousand dollars home.
An initial motion to leave the tax rate as proposed at 16-63 by Council Member Grant Wilke. That failed on a vote with three council members – Lynn McGraw, Grant Wilke and Paul Gassman the supporting votes.
A move have the lower 16-35 rate was approved with support from John Rowland, Tom Determan, Ed O’Neill and Julie Allessee.
An earlier report prepared by the Finance Department to appropriate the cut of the Emergency Levy proportionately showed the largest cuts are in the Police Department with a cut of 93-thousand dollars and the Fire Department with a loss of 74-thousand dollars.
Listen to the story on-the-air to hear some of the council members comments
