Johnson City Commission approves third reading of budget, property tax increase

The Johnson City Commission approved a final reading of the city's 2023-24 fiscal year budget during its meeting on Thursday.The budget includes a 25-cent property tax increase which would bring the rate from $1.73 to $1.98 for most areas of the city. At the city's current tax rate of $1.73, a property with an assessed value of $200,000 would owe approximately $865 in property taxes. At the new rate of $1.98, a property with an assessed value of $200,000 would owe approximately $990 in taxes — a $125 increase. The 25-cent increase is the city's first since 2015.Fifteen cents of the 25-cent tax increase would bring in approximately $3.1 million which will go toward funding the debt service for a new Towne Acres Elementary School. Seven cents of the increase will generate nearly $1.5 million to fund roadway improvements and the remaining 3 cents will generate around $650,000 for 911 and EMS to assist with rising costs and making salaries more competitive to retain and attract employees.During the meeting, commissioners addressed concerns they had heard from citizens on how next year's property value reappraisal will affect taxes in the future."The state sets what the value is so we become revenue neutral," City Manager Cathy Ball said. "We can only generate as much revenue as we did last year."Commissioner Joe Wise explained that if home values go up, the tax rate will go down unless there is another official tax increase, and citizens will pay roughly the same amount across the board."What folks really need to understand is if everybody had a $100,000 house, and our tax rate was $1, and everybody's $100,000 homes were reappraised at $200,000, we do not collect twice as much money," Wise said. "Our tax rate goes from $1 to 50 cents."Within this new budget, commissioners have allocated money to a number of investments within the city, including public safety, which makes up roughly 10% of the city's budget. Around $31.2 million will be allocated to operations and personnel for both the police and fire departments.The budget also includes $357,000 for the continuation of the body-worn camera program for the police department, $265,000 for the installation of cameras downtown, $200,000 for downtown crosswalk lighting and both a public information officer position and a homeless outreach coordinator position within the police department.The city is also investing $443,000 in specific focus areas for the police department in anticipation of a report by the Daigle Law Group, which is in the process of investigating and identifying areas that need improvement concerning how the city handles sexual assault cases."Since July of last year, we have asked a consultant, a nationally-known consultant, Daigle Law Firm, to come into our community and do a review of our practices and policies around how we handle sexual assault cases," Ball said.Ball said the city expects to receive the Daigle report in July, but has already identified the need for more funding in several areas as a result of communications with the law group."We have been in conversations with Daigle," said Ball. "We talk to them at least once a month and try to get a feel for what some of those recommendations are."Some of those investments include $208,000 for additional police training — a $100,000 increase from last year, $50,000 for a new records management system, $100,000 for increased Criminal Investigation Division pay along with a 5-year commitment to serve within that department to help with caseloads and $85,000 for a digital forensics analyst and software.The city also is investing in core services where it plans to spend roughly $5.4 million on roadway improvements in total, $5 million of which will go toward street resurfacing, hire five additional personnel and spend roughly $6.9 million on capital equipment and $24.9 million on core service capital projects.The budget also includes nearly $2.3 million for community partners such as the Johnson City Development Authority, Johnson City/Washington County Animal Shelter, Emergency Management Agency and others.The budget was approved unanimously by the commission and will go into effect on July 1.