Clinton City Council approves new tax rate
The Clinton City Council has approved its property tax rate for the city on second and final reading.
The vote came at the Tuesday Aug. 25, and the rate will be $0.526 per $100 of taxable property down from its previous 86 cents per $100 of taxable property.
Clinton City Council member David Queener made the motion, and Clinton City Council member Wendy Maness seconded. The measure passed unanimously, although Council Member Brian Hatmaker was absent.
“This is because appraisals are going up, so we lowered the tax rate,” said city manager Roger Houck. Finance Director Gail Cook explained that due to the changes in appraisals, some individuals could pay less or more.
She explained the state does the certification of property appraisals not the city. Also, this city rate will be on top of the county’s rate of $1.4889 per $100 of taxable property in Clinton. Cook told The Courier News the total assessed property value is $739,388,791.
Cook gave an update on the city’s finances generally. She said she anticipated the city’s fund balance, or the amount left over from last year’s budget to be around $10 million, down from last year’s $12.2 million.
City Council member Rob Herrell told the Council there would be no rate increase for sewer or water services from the Clinton Utilities Board (CUB).
Bowling alley
During the same meeting, recreation director Jason Brown gave updates on different projects. He expected the contractor to be done with the bowling alley renovations by Sept. 15.
“Whereas the pool drove us all crazy, the bowling is totally different,” he said with regard to the pace of renovations at the city’s community center bowling alley verses its pool.
He said the project to convert some of the city’s tennis courts to pickleball courts was delayed due to the contractor’s delays with a different project. He said equipment will arrive, however, this week and they’re hoping to start this weekend. He said he did not know how long the project would take.
