County holds public hearing

The St. Francois County Commission held a public hearing on the county’s new tax levy rates prior to the regular session Tuesday at the courthouse annex.

Presiding Commissioner Harold Gallaher read the final reassessment figures for St. Francois County.

“[The current real estate appraisal for 2018] was $513.5 million, and the new appraisal was up 7.5 percent to $552.25 million,” he said. “The personal property went up only 1.1 percent from $168 million to $170 million.

“The local utilities actually went down 1 percent. That went down from $2.6 million to $2.599 million. The state utilities went up from $84 million to $94 million. That is the appraisal rates.”

County Clerk Kevin Engler explained what the new rollback in tax rates will be for this year.

“The southern half grew substantially, the northern half didn’t grow near as much,” he said. “Totally reflected, we need to have a rollback. We were at 6 cents last year on general revenue and the proposal if you roll it back to be in compliance with the 1.9 percent, which is the Consumer Price Index that you have to use according to the Hancock Amendment, we’ll be taking down to 5.27 [cents]. It doesn’t sound like much, because you went down about three quarters of a penny, but it’s a high percentage.

“Unfortunately we don’t have a $2 or $3 levy, the rollback would have been much more substantial.”

Engler explained that Road and Bridge’s new rate is .24 cents and Senior Services will be .0482 cents.

“That’s the rates that have been posted, that’s the proposed rates and that’s in compliance with the mandatory rollback.”

There were no comments from the audience and the session was adjourned for a brief break followed by the county commission’s regular session.

Mark Marberry is a reporter for the Farmington Press and Daily Journal. He can be reached at 573-518-3629, or at mmarberry@farmingtonpressonline.com