For the second straight year,
Smyrna is dropping its property tax rate, and that makes city
officials feel pretty good about what's happening in the town,
the city's mayor said.
Two years in office has changed
Spivey's perspective on the office he holds. *
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Murfreesboro has passed a budget with no tax increase, Rutherford
County passed a budget with a 27-cent property tax increase.
Smyrna's going the opposite direction. What happened?
It ties back to a lot of things.
The main thing is fiscal responsibility with our budget. We've
taken a different direction with budgeting than how it's been
done in the past.
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What's been the impact of impact fees?
We had a lot of commitments that were made by the previous administration
for what those fees were going to cover from the standpoint of
capital improvements and things of that nature. Impact fees have
provided something over $1 million for our budget. We're doing
them on residential and commercial, and just before we came into
office, it was put on industrial. I don't necessarily agree with
the industrial part because I think we're out here trying to
get industry and we're finding ways to discourage them when they
step up to the plate. I think our council will be looking at
that very, very carefully this year now that we've got a handle
on our budget and know where our revenues are coming from. I
don't feel we should stymie industry by putting impact fees on
them nearly as heavy as we've got right now.
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Are your impact fees having any effect on residential building?
We are not building as many houses or issuing as many permits
as La Vergne, maybe. However, the value of our permits is substantially
more. We are satisfied with our growth. It could be very
rampant. I'm sure impact fees are a bit of a deterrent. I build
a few houses. It's not a palatable thing to do, but yet it's
necessary and I do feel growth has to pay its way. Without impact
fees we would probably have had some problems doing some of the
things we've done. With everything put together, we've been
very successful and able to toe the line on our taxes - and reduce
them two years in a row.
The state's facing major problems.
We know the county is facing major problems: where do we get
more money to do what we need to do, especially with our schools.
