Tax rate set
The Sulphur Springs city council held a special session Tuesday to vote on establishing a master fee schedule, setting a water, sewer and sanitation rate and updated service credits after the second and final readings.
Mayor John Sellers shared that the city’s new fiscal year starts on the first of October.
The council discussed establishing the master fee schedule.
Council member Jay Julian shared what he referred to as ‘food for thought’ asking if there was a way to more evenly distribute the street maintenance fee to be based on a vehicle approach instead of on the water meter.
Julian shared that while doing research he had discovered that over 4,0000 drivers traveled over the county’s street from 2019 to 2020.
“Looking at this slide you made,” Julian said, addressing Tory Niewiadomski, director of community development. “Our goal should be this 14.9 or 15 years, moving the fee up or down as needed, perhaps we need to have a workshop with the county to figure out how to share the burden,” Julian said.
City Manager Marc Maxwell shared that he felt that that could be something to consider however he would want to research it a bit first.
Sellers shared that he had some reservations and wanted to do some studying himself to look at moving the fee up gradually, addressing the potential risks or drawbacks.
Sellers mentioned that while on social media he had seen a lot of misinformation being spread around, such as people thinking the program has been going on for five years instead of three.
“Maybe we can draw up a facts sheet to share with the public about what has been accomplished,” Sellers commented.
Information included on the sheet would be how the money was spent and what roads are included in the program.
Next the council approved an appropriations ordinance to update the budget to include $509,000 revenue and expenditures for the Street Improvement Fund.
The council then approved the tax rate for 2021-2022 at 4.2692 per $100, set the water and sewer rate at 2%, set the sanitation rate at 5% and updated the service credits for employees retirement program.