City to review rates soon

By Melinda L. Lucas

A special meeting of the Albany city council is expected to be scheduled in the next week or two to discuss and possibly propose a tax rate for the upcoming tax year.

The council did not review tax rate options at Monday’s regular session because those calculations were not yet available.

City manager Billy Holson said that having a special meeting before the end of August will give the city time to post any required notices prior to the next regular meeting on Sept. 11.

The city’s fiscal year ends in March, so the budget has already been decided.

Other Business

•Council members passed a resolution approving a negotiated settlement between the Atmos Cities Steering Committee and Atmos Energy regarding the company’s 2023 rate review mechanism filing, which involves an increase of $6.47 a month for residential customers and $24.42 for commercial customers, effective Oct. 1, 2023. System-wide, the increase for Atmos was $142 million.

•The council gave Holson the authority to work out an agreement with Tom Echols, who asked for the rights to purchase up to five acre feet of raw water from the PK line that runs across land that he manages. The City of Albany has rights for up to 100 acre feet of water from Possum Kingdom Lake.

•The council was in closed session for about an hour to discuss personnel matters, but no action was taken when the meeting was reopened to the public.