CALLAWAY — The Callaway City Commission endorsed a slightly higher tax Wednesday night, approving the rollback millage rate at the urging of City Manager Michael Fuller.
The rollback rate is 2.7112, amounting to $277 for a home with an assessed value of $100,000. The same home would be taxed $225 at the current rate is 2.25 mills. One mill equates to $1 of tax for every $1,000 of value. The rollback rate is the millage necessary to match the amount of the previous year’s property tax revenue.
Commissioner Melba Covey voted against the tax increase and the budget, which will not be final until the commission votes again on Sept. 22.
“The citizens can’t handle more taxes on their back,” she said. “People have moved out in droves. If we continue to raise up the millage, that rate will continue to rise.”
Covey made the first motion that the city stay at 2.25 mills with Pamn Henderson providing a second. Henderson then voted against keeping taxes at 2.25 along with Ralph Hollister and Mayor Thomas Abbott. Commissioner Bob Pelletier was absent, on vacation in Europe.
Property values in Callaway went down by .6 percent, amounting to a decrease of $6,455 in revenue if the millage would have stayed at 2.25.
“I do recommend we go with the roll back,” Hollister said. “If we don’t, we’ll be in real trouble next year.”
Fuller had proposed a budget with a millage increase to 3.14. To amount for that difference, the commission will dip into reserves to balance the general fund. Fuller said this will not affect the city’s goal of maintaining 17 percent of its budget in reserves.
“I wouldn’t want to have your job for all the money in the world,” resident Bill Brown said to Fuller.
Included in the proposed budget are salary increases — 4 percent for employees who make less than $30,000 and 3 percent for those who make more than $30,000 — and $1.8 million to replace water meters.
