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| Serving Callaway County communities since 1875. | www.fultonsun.com | Saturday, July 04, 2009 |
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New Bloomfield to see drop in city tax rate By ROGER MEISSEN The Fulton Sun
City Council members agreed in its meeting Tuesday night to the drop in rates, lowering the rate from $.8906 to $.7299. That brings rates down more than 16 cents per $100 of assessed valuation of property. The new rate will essentially lower the amount New Bloomfield residents pay for their property taxes. “That's a considerable drop in one year, said Ward II Council Member Rosemary Augustine. “Everybody's going to be really happy about this, I'm sure.” This drop in rates falls within a state-recommended range for New Bloomfield. “The State Auditor's Office gives you a bandwidth of sorts in which to work and also set a ceiling,” Augustine said. “In other words, you can't go above a certain amount.” The rate is composed of two segments - one for general revenue and part to service the city's debt for its street bonds. “The reason why it's falling is because the city has the opportunity when you have debt service on a bond issue to save up to one year's payment,” Augustine said. “Because the city - over the past several years - has done a really good job of setting the tax rate, we are now close to that value of an extra one year's tax payment on that general obligation bond. “Because of that, the tax rate we set keeps going down.” Augustine said the city saved little by little over the course of several years to get to this point. She pointed out that this drop is truly because of planning within state guidelines, not setting tax rates too high for the city. “The taxes weren't exorbitant in any sort of means,” Augustine said. “The city council is just thankful that we're at a point where we can each year start lowering the taxes.” |
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