Mayor Coppinger presents county budget to commissioners

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger presented the new budget to county commissioners Wednesday morning.

There’s no tax increase for the 10th straight year, but that doesn’t mean that some residents won’t be paying more property taxes in 2018.

Mayor Coppinger said, “So what is this budget? It is a balanced budget that we’re required to present to you. It does not include any property tax increase.”

The biggest part of the budget is for Hamilton county schools.

Educators say they need an extra $24 million, but will get about a third of that, thanks to local growth.

Mayor Coppinger continued, ” There’s an increase in the budget of a little over $8 million to the department of education, again, as you well know we fund the department of education in this particular budget just the operation portion of the, to the department of education will be $425, 770,000.”

But how much tax you’ll pay in 2018 depends on the value of your property. And this is the year that property is being re-assessed. It happens every 4 years.

Commissioner Randy Fairbanks said, “The end result for the property owner is this..last year I was paying this many..this much taxes –this year I’m paying this much taxes…they’ll say, ‘Commissioner Fairbanks, you raised my taxes.’ I mean, they don’t …uh, they don’t care about the millage rate words and all that stuff.”

And setting the millage rate is the key.

Commissioner Sabrina Smedley said, “If we leave the millage rate where it is, they’re going to see a tax increase…and a lot of these are seniors.”

Commissioner Joe Graham said, “I realize that’s its against the law to use an assessment to raise taxes to generate new revenue… that this has to be cost-neutral. But I also realize that if your assessment went up, if you’re in an area that your property values went up, your taxes are going to go up.”

If the county leaves the millage rate the same, that’s indeed what would happen.

The commission is expected to take up that issue again before passing the budget.

The total Hamilton county budget for fiscal 2018 is $691.5-million.

The commission is expected to vote on it June 21st.