News Channel 9 had a story on the ongoing debate about the new city property tax rate and funding raises for police and firefighters. CRER director and chief economist Howard Wall had this to say:
UTC economist Howard Wall says part of what’s complicating the budget is rising property values.
“The tax rate is automatically lowered if, like in Chattanooga, the property values went up quite a lot.”
Tennessee is one of nine states with certified tax rates – meaning cities can’t automatically collect more because property values rise.
“It’s not really a tax increase, because we know some of it’s going to happen, and we had it higher, and it’s really just deciding what you want your tax rate to be.”
Wall says it all comes down to balancing priorities like funding police while managing what residents pay.
If you don’t fund police, how much will that affect you? Or if you don’t keep up with inflation, how much will that affect you? So it’s an interesting problem where you have to balance the spending and the taxing, and decide what it is you want to do.”