City council adopts tax rate after week delay
By Melinda L. Lucas
After a delay of a little more than a week, members of the Albany city council met last Wednesday night, Sept. 23 to adopt the proposed tax rate and work through several other items of business, including the sale of the Albany Youth Center to ResourceCare (RC) and a new franchise agreement with Atmos Energy.
The session was originally planned on the usual second Tuesday of the month with a required tax rate public hearing, but when several of the city council members had conflicts or were ill, the city had to post and publicize a new hearing date.
NNR Tax Rate
The council adopted the proposed tax rate with no discussion and no one from the public objecting to the rate, which was proposed in August.
The “no-new-revenue” (NNR) rate, previously known as the effective tax rate, is based on a rate that would produce the same amount of taxes if applied to the same properties taxed the previous year.
The rate of 67.55 cents, which is actually lower than the 2019 rate of 68.66 cents per $100 valuation because of higher values within the city limits, was adopted unanimously on a motion by Austin Sherwood, seconded by Don Taggart.
Youth Center Sale
As the result of a request that first came up at the council’s July meeting, legal proceedings are now underway to sell the Albany Youth Center to ResourceCare for a price of $100 plus legal fees.
The building has been utilized and maintained by ResourceCare for various programs for 25 years.
ResourceCare CEO Meagan Marshall formally asked the council more than two months ago to consider the sale or long-term lease of the Albany Youth Center, stating that the RC board would prefer to own the building rather than have a long-term lease.
She explained that when seeking grants and other types of funds to reno-vate or make upgrades, she often runs into the problem of Resource -Care not owning the building, or at the very least, having a long-term lease.
After seeking advice from the city’s legal counsel, city manager Billy Holson explained that since Resource Care falls within the boundaries of a nonprofit corporation and uses the facility for public good, the council is allowed to sell the building to RC without sealed bids. However, if it is sold for less than appraised value and in the future, the building is abandoned or is no longer used for the public good, ownership will revert back to the city.
After checking with her board about the terms, Marshall was back at last week’s council meeting, and after some discussion, Sherwood made a motion to sell the facility to the Resource Center for $100 plus legal fees, with the stipulation that the property revert back to city ownership in the event that ResourceCare stops using the building for the public good.
The other two council members in attendance, Taggart and Lester Galbreath, also voted in favor of the sale.
Atmos Franchise
Shaun Martin with Atmos Energy explained two of the items on the Sept. 23 agenda.
He requested that the city approve a new 25-year franchise agreement that will extend through 2045, allowing the company to access public right-of-ways in exchange for an increased four percent franchise fee.
The council agreed to the franchise terms on Holson’s recommendation.
Martin also asked that the city approve a customer rate increase that has gone through the Atmos Steering Committee mechanism, which the City of Albany is part of.
He explained that the increase will reflect a monthly increase of about $5.15 for residential customers and $15.50 for commercial customers.
The increase was approved.
