Buena Vista’s real estate tax is to rise by 7 cents, from 91 to 98 cents per $100 assessed value. The new rate takes effect July 1 and will be reflected in the bills due Dec. 5.
City Council on Thursday set tax and fee rates, approved a budget and appropriated funds for fiscal year 2026. Three separates 5-2 votes approved these actions, with Stanley Coffey and Danny Staton dissenting on each vote.
The personal property tax rate is staying the same at $5.85 per $100 assessed value. Residential monthly trash collection fees were raised from $21 to $23. Various other fees were raised, including those for cemetery plots and opening of graves, camping at Glen Maury Park, curb and gutter and land disturbance.
City employees are being given 1.5 percent pay raises. No new positions have been created, though a few jobs have been shuffled among different departments.
City Council followed the recommendation of the budget and finance committee to reduce a proposed increase to the real estate tax rate by 7 cents. It had earlier been proposed, and advertised, to increase the real estate tax rate by 14 cents. Mayor Tyson Cooper’s proposal to reduce the tax increase to 7 cents was adopted.
The tax reduction was made possible by removing from the general fund half of the expenditures for the pay and benefits for the city manager, finance director, treasurer and treasurer’s staff, and charging those costs to the water and sewer funds. The justification for these shifts is that the persons in these positions spend about half of their time with work related to the water and sewer funds. This accounting practice had been used for the city manager and finance director prior to fiscal year 2025.
The reallocation of pay and benefits for these positions is being done as follows – 50 percent from the general fund, 25 percent from the water fund and 25 percent from the sewer fund. Removing portions of these allocations from the general fund is to result in general fund savings of $299,000, which is equal to about 7 cents on the real estate tax.
Increases in costs to the water and sewer funds are being offset by lowering the amounts of money going to water and sewer infrastructure reserves and taking some money out of the sewer fund’s fund balance.
During the citizens’ comments period of Thursday’s meeting, Amy Gilliam questioned the appropriateness of making these reallocations. She also raised questions about practices of the Public Service Authority, which is composed of members of City Council and earlier set water and sewer rates.
Jordan Rice and Wayne Fitzgerald spoke out against the monthly camping rate increases. Complaints about raising the monthly camping rates for Buena Vista residents from $335 to $500 were made by several citizens at a public hearing on the budget held two weeks earlier.
Council member Coffey, one of the two dissenters to the budget, questioned and said he found it “curious” that the amount of local allocations for the police department ($2,324,820) and schools ($2,295,238) were so close.
Coffey asked about the proposed cigarette tax. City Attorney Brian Kearney responded that such a tax has not yet been approved. If City Council chooses to do so, it would need to adopt a budget amendment that would have to be advertised beforehand and a public hearing held.
A proposal was made during budget deliberations earlier to enact a 25-cents-a-pack cigarette tax to take effect Jan. 1 for the second half of the fiscal year. It was projected that this tax would generate approximately $50,000 over a six months period.
