Alderman: Tax hike ups competitiveness

Raising taxes will make Philadelphia more competitive with surrounding cities, Ward 1 Alderman Justin Clearman insisted last week during a public hearing on a proposed $11 million 2022 budget that included a tax hike. 

“I just believe for us being in a competitive marketplace with the rest of the towns that are within a 50-mile radius of here, that we need to step it up a little bit,” Clearman said of the proposed 1-mill tax increase during the hearing last Wednesday.

Aldermen were to have voted on a final budget Tuesday night after the Democrat had gone to press. (Check neshobademocrat.com for an update.)

City leaders proposed the tax hike to help fund unspecified pay raises for city employees. No citizens turned out for the hearing at City Hall.

The tax increase, Clearman said, is about more than just pay raises for city employees.

“I feel like it leverages ourselves to be more marketable as a city,” Clearman said of the tax increase proposal. “Everybody in this town complains about not having this, or this, or this. There are reasons we don’t have them….. If the citizens want what the citizens keep coming to us saying they want to have then they need to just like we are going to have to as citizens, as taxpayers, invest in the city a little bit.”

Clearman, a Republican, said during the public hearing he did not like the way The Neshoba Democrat published a story on the proposed tax increase in last Wednesday’s edition at the top of the front page, saying the issue is about more than just pay raises for city employees.

Proponents of the tax increase like Clearman have said it is necessary for Philadelphia to remain competitive with surrounding municipalities such as Carthage, Union and Louisville.

The proposal would take the city’s millage rate from 19 mills to 20. One mill represents $1 of tax on every $1,000 of assessed property value.

Favoring the tax hike with Clearman were Ward 3 Alderman James Tatum and Ward 4 Alderman Shaun Seales, both Democrats.

Ward 2 Alderman Jim Fulton and Alderman-at-Large James Waltman, both Republicans, were against the tax hike.

Fulton has maintained he believes revenue last year was strong enough not to require a tax increase.

“We finished strong with our revenues and sales tax,” Fulton said. “I don’t know if it will continue next year. I hope it does.”

Seales said he believed the tax increase is important for the city’s future.

“We have to get up to modern-day times,” Seales said. “We cannot stay back and we have got to make the city profitable for the people to afford the increase.”

He went on to say, “Do we want to raise taxes on anybody, no. But is it necessary, yes. As I told my constituents, we have to get up to modern times. We can always take it back down. But I think it is the thing to do.”

Seales is delinquent on property taxes in the city on parcels of land he owns that were sold at auction last month, records show. (See story, Page 1A.)

Of the $10,960,350 in total revenue, $1,530,000 will come from ad valorem taxes, an increase of $366,800 when compared to the current budget.

City officials told the Democrat at the hearing they have not completed an audit since 2017 but are working on Fiscal Year 2019-2020.