Community Impact reports that on August 13th Montgomery County commissioners dealt with several factors to make a decision in day one of their budget workshops. They talked about possibly bringing up the tax rate close to the voter-approval rate in the midst of inflation.
Because of increases from inflation and spending over the past several years, County Budget Director Amanda Carter informed commissioners that this year’s budget would likely entail a tax increase.
Ms. Carter advised commissioners to not “focus on building your budget around . . . your tax rate.” She suggested prioritizing items first.
Tax Assessor-Collector Tammy McRae made a comparison of the statutory no-new-revenue and voter-approval tax rates to Budget Director Carter’s rate used to put together the base preliminary budget for Fiscal Year 2024-25 which shows:
–The proposed budget base rate at $0.3696 per $100 valuation.
–The no-new-revenue rate at $0.3480 per $100 valuation.
–The voter-approval rate at $0.3875 per $100 valuation.
Before any additional department capital improvement requests, the preliminary budget put before commissioners came to $455.18 million.
According to information provided to the court by McRae, $23.03 million in new funds will be provided by property taxes in 2025. Carter said, however, commissioners have already obligated $19 million through earlier court actions, such as funding the staff.
Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack said cost-of-living increases needed to be prioritized by the county, passing along that the county would need to bring the tax rate up. Considering the deadline to put on a voter-approval tax rate election by August 19th, Carter said the county would likely legally not have the time to approve a tax rate election. The county does have, however, $14 million to work with to provide funds for positions and new further requests before arriving at the voter-approval rate.
There are budget workshops ahead on August 14th and 15th.
