Jacksboro proposes higher tax rate

Jacksboro City Council approved a proposed tax rate of $1.263505 per $100 of value, or the effective rate, which should generate approximately $1.45 million in revenue at its meeting Monday.

“The effective tax rate would bring in the same amount of revenue that was brought in last year. Property values have gone down. So the tax rate itself would come up.” said City Manager Mike Smith.

Last year’s tax rate was $1.18.

The city saw a decrease in values of about $6.13 million for the upcoming tax year.

Budget matters

The city has budgeted $830,000 in revenue from ad valorem taxes and $830,000 from sales tax receipts for the general fund with a total of $2.8 million in revenue.

Some items that were cut in order to balance the budget include donations which in recent years have been $20,000 each to the Gladys Johnson Ritchie Library and Concerned Citizens were cut from $40,000 to $20,000. Contingency funding for the administration budget was cut from $20,000 to zero.

Document management software budgeted at $35,000 was cut from the proposed budget.

Another $4,300 for special events from the human resources department budget was cut, as was $1,000 for employee awards.

The legal budget was cut by $14,000, but Smith said the current year was an anomaly of having additional legal expenses.

To read the complete article, see the Aug. 12 edition of the Herald-Gazette.