The Newberry City Commission approved a 6.0 proposed millage rate at its regular meeting on Monday, with an intention to put a higher rate on a ballot referendum in April 2025. 

The rollback rate, which would generate the same amount of money as last year, would have been 5.7182 mills. The 6.0 rate is a 4.9% increase over the rollback rate. 

Staff presented the City Commission with several millage rate options, including the current year’s 5.90 rate, which would have no impact on residents, a 6.0 rate, which would cost residents an average additional $20 per year, based on a $200,000 home value, and would add funding for a road assessment study and implementation. 

The final option before the commission was to raise the rate to 6.50, which would increase funding by just under $470,000 per year, enough to issue a 30-year debt service to pave SW 46^th Avenue or another road project. That option would have cost citizens an average additional $120 per year and would have required a super-majority (four votes out of 5) from the commission. 

Commissioner Monty Farnsworth made a motion to approve the 5.9 rate, which Commissioner Mark Clark seconded. 

Commissioner Tony Mazon asked if the city would then disregard SW 46^th Avenue, and Clark said he would rather leave the millage rate as it is and leave the decision to the citizens to vote on a higher rate for the road. 

Assistant city manager and CFO Dallas Lee told the commission that if it intends to use a general obligation bond, which requires citizens to vote on the issue, staff recommends the 6.0 millage to allow funding to hire attorneys to draft the documents and ballot language. 

Upon staff’s recommendation, Farnsworth amended his motion to the 6.0 rate, and Clark again seconded. 

Mazon asked if 46^th Avenue improvements could be done with a millage rate between 6.5000 and 6.0, and Lee said a rate lower than 6.5000 would require a different construction plan for the road. 

Mazon said that he would rather “rip the Band-Aid off” and go straight to the 6.5000 rate and that the debt could likely be paid off in less than 30 years because of new housing being added and taxed. 

“I just feel that some things you do go to your citizens about, and every citizen that I’ve talked to, they’re always talking about the infrastructure,” Mazon said. 

Commissioner Rick Coleman said he did not feel comfortable handling that much money without clear public approval. 

“That’s a lot of money to put in 30 years,” Coleman said. “We need our citizens to be able to have a voice in this.” 

The commission approved the 6.0 proposed rate 4-1, with Mazon in dissent. 

The proposed rate adopted by the commission on Monday is the highest that can be adopted for the 2024-25 fiscal year, though the commission can choose to lower the rate at the final budget hearings, set for 7 p.m. on Sept. 9 and Sept 23.