As Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness reviewed his 2019 budget proposal before the City Council Finance Committee Wednesday night, he projects a 5.5 cent increase in the city’s property tax rate. He told the council panel that this would fund debt on two fronts – paying for the Nickel Plate Trail construction and financing renovation projects for the city’s fire stations in need of the work.
The mayor said a lot of the property tax rate increase is tied to the fire stations.
“We’ve built-in a pretty aggressive financial scenario for the fire stations, where we’re basically building-in a $2.5 million annual payment to pay for the fire stations, so that we can get ahead of this and deal with it,” Fadness told the council committee members.
The mayor is also proposing that a 3 percent pay increase be included in the budget for next year. The 3 percent raise would also apply to elected city officials.
Fadness is also recommending five new police officers to the force, with two of those five to be assigned as resource officers in Hamilton Southeastern Schools. He also wants council members to add three new firefighter positions.
The projections for the city tax rate show a slight decrease in years 2020 and 2021.
City Controller Lisa Bradford told the committee she ran some numbers on how much the rate increase would cost homeowners in 2019. She looked at a home with an assessed value of $208,000, and projects a tax increase of approximately $57 a year. Homes with a higher assessed valuation may hit the property tax cap, and that can get a bit more complicated.
Both Bradford and Fadness told the council panel that the largest driver of local property tax increases is not tied to the tax rate, but is created by an increase in the home’s assessed valuation.
Fadness is pleased with what is projected in the revenue side of the 2019 budget, with assessed valuations of property in the city rising. The assessed value is expected to rise 5.3 percent in 2019, compared to a 3.7 percent increase in 2018.