Demorest property owners will pay more this year in property taxes than last year. The Demorest City Council approved its FY 2025 budget as it was presented which included the 1 mill increase for property taxes.
The Demorest City Council held its third and final public hearings for the budget and the millage rate increase. Only a handful of citizens attended the meeting.
Prior to the public hearings, Councilman Shawn Allen addressed the audience and explained that the budget and the millage rate are connected and one affects the other. He said that no citizens approached him about the budget or the millage rate.
“Putting a big budget for an entire city together is not something that comes naturally to anybody,” he told the audience. He added, ”The city doesn’t belong to just these people sitting at this desk right here. It belongs to everybody here.”
“We all should have input into what we think the direction that we should have for the city.” Allen told the audience.
Public comment
Some of those that attended asked basic questions of the council from the audience. Marie Evans was the only one to formally address the council from the podium during the public hearings.
She told the council that the issue with the millage rate and the budget is that it is affected by property values. Evans explained that since she bought her home in Demorest in 2016 for $100,000, the fair market value today, based on the county, has gone up by 228.97%. She said her taxes have increased by 309.57% in the same period.
Evans told the council that they were basing the millage rate on property values that are related to a sellers market. She said that real estate values are going to start coming down. “What are you all going to do when the real estate values come down? Are you going to have to up the millage rate even more to be able to make your budget?” she asked.
Referencing her property reassessment, she said, “It’s basically, we’re being taxed on unrealized gain. We’re being taxed on something that we have really no control over.”
Evans explained that many are living paycheck to paycheck and live on tight budgets. She told the council that with the millage rate increase and two water rate increases this year, the added costs are killing her budget.
Mayor Jerry Harkness said that everything is going up in cost and the city is getting hit with those costs as well.
Water fund transfers
City Manager Mark Musselwhite explained that the budget was set to reduce the amount of money transferred from the water fund to the city for operations. The city needed to keep money in the water fund to make repairs and replace things as needed.
In the past, auditors have scolded the city for transferring money from the water fund to the general fund in order to fund city operations.
The 2025 proposed budget has a transfer of nearly $1.4 million from the water fund to the general fund to balance the budget. That is a reduction of $200,000 compared to last year when the city transferred nearly $1.6 million to the general fund.
Musselwhite explained to the council, any additions to the budget would increase the amount of money needed from the water fund to balance the budget.
Councilman Jimmy Davis asked if a pumper truck had been added to the budget? Musselwhite stated that it had not since three council members had not instructed him to add it.
The pumper truck for the fire department that Davis proposed would add an additional $87,530 per year for a five year lease to the general fund. He made the motion to approve the budget with the addition of the pumper truck lease payment. The motion failed without a second.
The proposed 2025 budget and the millage rate increase to 7.16 mills was voted on and passed unanimously.
