Clarendon Aldermen won’t raise taxes, fees

The Clarendon Board of Aldermen will hold the line on property taxes and are not planning to increase utility fees according to the city’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2011.

Aldermen are planning to keep the city’s ad valorem tax rate at the current $0.65 per $100 valuation to support this budget. Fees for city services are also unchanged. The city expects to generate $296,617 in property taxes, but due to lower property valuations, that is about $10,520 less in total expected tax revenue, Covey said.

Aldermen could have adopted an effective tax rate of $0.673 to bring in the same revenue as last year, but they have chosen not to do that.

“I think the citizens would appreciate us not raising taxes,” Alderman Larry Hicks said during last Tuesday’s regular board meeting.

The bottom line of the $1.77 million budget is not much different from the current budget, according to city officials. City Secretary Machiel Covey said aldermen have planned for a three percent salary increase for city employees.

The proposed budget has no money specified for seal coating streets, but it does maintain the current budget’s $14,000 line item for asphalt, which Covey said is used for patching streets.

A budget hearing and a tax rate hearing will be held next Tuesday, August 24, at 5:30 p.m. in Burton Memorial Library.

In other city business, aldermen discussed the process of selecting the city’s next administrator when they met August 10.

The board allowed Mayor Chris Ford to gather more information about bringing in another interim administrator since Phyllis Jeffers stepped down from that position August 6.

Several board members expressed concerns with the cost of having a temporary administrator, which amounts to $45 per hour plus travel, lodging, and meal expenses.

Alderman Ann Huey, addressing the board via speakerphone, said she believed the city needs another interim at least three days a week to take care of business until a permanent administrator is hired.

In the search for a fulltime administrator, Mayor Ford reported the city had received more than a dozen applications. He asked each alderman to review those applications at City Hall on their own time during a two week period and select their top three or four candidates. The list will then be narrowed and brought back to the board at its next meeting.