County Sets Millage Rate
Last updated Thursday, January 3, 2008 9:41 PM CST in News
By Christopher Spencer
The Morning News
FAYETTEVILLE — The Washington County Quorum Court completed its financial duties for 2007 Thursday by setting its millage and that of all the cities and school districts within its territory Thursday.
The approval of Washington County’s millage rate is largely administrative — county officials don’t reject the rate sent to them by other governmental entities — but it is an important function of county government, said Justice of the Peace H.L. Goodwin.
Quorum Court members set the county millage rate at 6.6 mills, down 0.2 mills from the prior year. The rate for 2007 went down because of state-mandated rollbacks. Those rollbacks also made necessary an extension on the county’s deadline to approve the millage rate to Jan. 8.
The majority of the Quorum Court members said last month they did want to raise the property tax rate for Washington County because of an apparent economic downturn.
Quorum Court members rejected a plan by County Judge Jerry Hunton that called for a tax hike to replace four aging bridges in the county. Hunton’s plan called for raising the county’s road millage rate from 1.1 to 2.9 mills.
One of the four bridges, Woolsey Bridge south of West Fork, was closed for several weeks starting in September. The bridge has since opened again to light traffic, such as cars and pickups. Hunton proposed that the bridges should be replaced with about $8.9 million in millage money raised over five years.
Several Quorum Court members said they would not support raising taxes while the county has about $15 million in reserves. They also expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that, under Hunton’s plan, cities in the county would also receive money from the increase in the road millage.
Hunton also appointed four members of the Quorum Court to the newly formed alternative energy subcommittee at Thursday’s meeting. The subcommittee is supposed to explore ways the county can use energy more efficiently and how want alternate forms of energy the county could use in the near future.
Justices of the Peace Goodwin, Steve Zega, Micah Neal and Butch Pond compose the subcommittee. Members of that committee are expected to attend a one-day wind energy conference sponsored by the Arkansas Energy Office on January 17, 2008 at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith.
AT A GLANCE
Millage Rates
The county set its millage rate Thursday. The 2007 rate dropped 0.2 mills because of required rate rollbacks. A mill is one-tenth of a cent, and each mill produces $1 of tax for each $1,000 of assessed valuation on property. A property’s assessed value is 20 percent of its appraised value. The county’s millage rate is composed of the general millage, the road millage and the county library millage.
County General 4.5 mills
County Road 1.1 mills
County Library 1.0 mills*
Total 6.6 mills
* To be collected throughout the county except within Fayetteville which maintains its own public library.
Source: Washington County
BY THE NUMBERS
School Millage
Washington County’s cities and school districts also had their millage rate set Thursday by the county. School districts are the governmental entities that depends most strongly on the property taxes generated by the millage rate.
Fayetteville 3.1 mills
School District 42.9 mills
Springdale 5.6
School District 38.6 mills
Elkins 4.8 mills
School District 39.6 mills
Greenland 2.8 mills
School District 36.9 mills
West Fork 4.9 mills
School District 38.6 mills
Farmington 4.7 mills
School District 42.6 mills
Prairie Grove 9.2 mills
School District 36.9 mills
Lincoln 6.3 mills
School District 39.8
Tontitown 1.9 mills
Elm Springs 4.9 mills
Johnson 4.7 mills
Winslow 3.0 mills
Goshen 0.0 mills
Source: Washington County
Reader Comments (No comments posted.)
The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsibility of their authors. The Morning News does not review comments before their publication, nor do we guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by our comment policy. If you see a comment that violates our policy, please notify the web editor.
Not already registered?
