During the recent October regular Morehead City Council meeting council members voted on and ultimately passed a measure to increase taxes for residents in a 4-to-1 vote.
Council Member Edna Schack was the singular no-vote. She proposed a lower tax increase of only about 3 percent, which she said is much closer to the inflation rate.
Following the meeting, Schack said that although she is disappointed the higher increase was adopted, she trusts the other council members to do what they feel is right.
“Every council member took this seriously, and every council member did their homework, talked to a lot of people, thought about how, what the benefits were for our city as well as the detriments, and made the decision that they felt was the best for the community. We have good council. This really brought out a lot of the public, and it seems to do that every year,” said Schack.
Council Member Lincoln Caudill voted yes to the increase. He said the funds will be used to help support residents of the city in different, yet important ways.
“This rate is not to increase revenues; this is to meet the revenues that we budgeted for. I sat on the budget committee, we made increases, and I’ll stand by that. We increased salaries, to everybody that works for the city. I’ll stand by that, I voted for that,” said Caudill.
Caudill added that a portion of the funds will be used to help improve the Morehead Fire Department, something that has been on the city’s bucket list for a while.
In setting the new rate the council cited state recommendations, saying it will allow them to collect the same amount of money as they did last year. The 2024 Real Property tax rate is up more than four cents from last year and is now at 45.2 cents per 100 dollars assessed value. The Personal Property Tax is lower than last year at 73.01 cents per 100 dollars value.