Lexington city leaders have returned to meetings after a six-week summer break. As tradition has it, taxes were on the agenda Tuesday.
The first meeting back means taking the first step toward setting property tax rates. The new rate to support the general services and urban services funds will likely be the current rate. With new properties and some residential and commercial land re-assessed, about $1.6 million additional dollars are projected. Eighth District Councilman Fred Brown cast the lone no vote.
“We’ve property got a pretty good healthy fund balance. This certainly might be the time that we would want to entertain and look at option two…and not worry about putting more money into our fund balance,” said Brown.
Budget Director Melissa Lueker said property re-assessment, about a quarter of all properties, went up 5.4%.
The urban services fund covers streetlights, refuse collection, and street cleaning. 10th District Councilman Dave Sevigny said street cleaning funding is running a bit short.
“It’s not a huge number that will be negative on street cleaning but we will not be covering street cleaning in its entirety. That’s just something over the course of this year we probably need to maybe put into committee or consider as a long-term project how to get that in line,” said Sevigny.
City officials wrestled a few years ago with keeping sufficient funding in place for the street light program. Budget Director Lueker said that was tied to rental costs going up. She said street cleaning is more manageable because it deals with personnel and equipment costs. Final action is expected Sept third.
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