By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
At its special-called meeting Monday, the Glasgow Common Council is expected to vote on the first reading of an ordinance setting the city’s 2025 rate for property taxes as well as an appointment and a couple of resolutions.
A public hearing on the tax rate begins at 5:45 p.m., with the actual meeting starting at the usual 6 p.m., all in Council Chambers on Floor 2 of the Luska J. Twyman Municipal Building, 126 E. Public Square.
The group also has three presentations on the agenda – updates on the farmer’s market construction and development of the former Johnson property and the report on the audit for the 2023-24 fiscal year, and before all that, the swearing in of a new police officer, Dawson Wooten.
The tax-rate ordinance is actually the last thing on the agenda before adjournment. The other action items include:
– a municipal order to appoint Patrick Slater to fulfill the unexpired term of Sam Chambers on the Glasgow Municipal Airport’s board of directors;
– a resolution authorizing a grant application to the Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection for the litter abatement program; and
– a resolution declaring certain Glasgow Fire Department property as surplus and authorizing disposition.
The current rate for both real property and personal property is 0.169, or 16.9 cents per $100 of assessed value of the property, and the proposed rate is 0.165, or 16.5 cents, per $100 of assessed property value.
The compensating rate – the one that would be expected to produce roughly the same or close to the amount of revenue as the prior year, as calculated by the Kentucky Department for Local Government and provided to the city, would be 0.160, or 16 cents, per $100 of assessed property value.
According to information provided at a special meeting of the council’s finance committee in late August, the total revenue received from the 2024 tax bills, as of April 2025, was $2,031,528. If the city went with the compensating rate, its revenue would be roughly $18,460 higher than what was collected last year, but it would be approximately $100,012 less than the $2.15 million the budget calls for.
The proposed rate is a compromise that would still reduce the rate for property owners, but this rate’s anticipated revenue of $2,114,050 would be roughly $82,522 more than from the previous year. It would still be less than what is budgeted, but the gap would be significantly smaller.
The 2024 property tax rate for motor vehicles and watercraft was 0.270, or 27 cents, per $100 of assessed value, and it generated approximately $330,074 in revenue.
The budgeted amount from these types of property for the current fiscal year is $345,000, and continuing with this rate in 2025 as proposed is expected to bring in approximately $337,990.
At that August special meeting of the committee, the three members present agreed to recommend to the full council the rates proposed by the administrative branch of the city government.
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