A more than 25-year levy rate for the City of Mount Vernon is potentially slated to increase this coming fiscal year.
The Mount Vernon City Council set a public hearing date on the proposed budget levy rate for Feb. 6.
City administrator Chris Nosbisch said that the more than 25 years the City of Mount Vernon’s levy rate will need to potentially increase from $12.99 per $1,000 to $13.15 per $1,000 for the coming fiscal year. “I think we’ve reached an inflection point for our $12.99 per $1,000 levy rate,” Nosbisch said. “We could try to keep the levy rate at $12.99 this year, we’ll just need to move money around from different funds.”
Nosbisch said the city needs to be looking at setting the levy rate closer to $13.50 per $1,000 in the next three years, and raising by roughly $0.16 per $1,000 this year moves closer to that.
Part of the reason for the raised levy rate was due to lower taxes generated at the state level.
“The state has been capping what cities are able to capture in tax rates via growth,” Nosbisch said.
When factoring in property tax rollback, it leaves less money generated locally to pay for needed services in a community.
Nosbisch noted that 3 percent growth in funding while inflation has been hovering around 8 percent most of the year has also impacted the city’s budget.
“I think we need to quantify it’s been this rate for a long time,” said council member Stephanie West
“Nobody wants to be in my chair proposing increasing this rate, either,” Nosbisch said.