The Cookeville City Council approved on first reading Thursday its proposed budget for the new fiscal year including a 7-cent property tax increase.
Finance Director Brenda Imel said the increase will provide an additional $862,000 in revenue. Imel said that property tax along with growing sales tax revenue have left Cookeville in a good place.
“We are heavily dependent on sales tax,” Imel said. “You shop here, don’t go to Mount Juliet, don’t go to Nashville, don’t go to Knoxville. You shop here in Cookeville. You shop here. Your money stays here and it goes into the general fund and it helps cover the salaries of our police officers, our fire department, all the departments in the general fund. It’s important that you stay and shop local.”
Imel said the city budgeted $20.2 million in sales tax revenue next year. That’s roughly a 2 percent increase. Imel said this year’s sales tax revenue may finish slightly below expectations.
The budget includes a market adjustment of $2,000 for all full-time city employees and up to two percent in merit increases. Imel said the pay scale will also be adjusted.
The biggest adjustment to employee pay is an increase in paramedic pay, an increase of some 67 percent.
Seven new positions will be funded, with a net increase of five positions. That includes a new firefighter.
The total city budget including all departments represents expenditures of over $60.9 million in the new fiscal year.
“This is a grown up budget,” Council Member Chad Gilbert said. “I mean, we’re dealing with real resources here. And I couldn’t be as great as we all know, Cookeville is, I couldn’t be happier about the outlook and looking down the road. And literally, I look at this, we’ve said these are spends and I understand gap principles, and that’s what they are, but they’re investments. And that’s the reality here.”
The property tax increase will move Cookeville’s rate to 99 cents. Five cents of the revenue will got the general fund, 1.5 cents to the debt service fund and a half penny to the solid waste fund.
Imel said a $500,000 home in Cookeville would pay $1,237, an increase of $87 under the tax increase.
In other business, Cookeville City Council postponed the next step in annexing an area of Dodson Branch Road Thursday night.
Community Development Director Jon Ward said residents in the Shipley Road area contacted the city wanting to explore annexation. Ward said it might make more sense to do it all at once.
Council reappointed Jim Shipley and JD Parks to the Industrial Development Board.
