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Guest column: Baughn’s budget recommendations to city manager

Posted at 9:38 am April 27, 2014
By Trina Baughn 28 Comments

Trina Baughn

Trina Baughn

The following are my 2015 budget recommendations to the city manager:

Mr. Watson,

I commend you for your willingness to reduce spending in your formulation of the Fiscal Year 2015 city budget. This approach is essential to making Oak Ridge more attractive to prospective residents and businesses.

As you know, Oak Ridge has the third highest city/county property tax rate in East Tennessee at $4.74. What you may not realize is this year, the city of Knoxville dropped below us in these rankings with a combined city/county rate of $4.71 while the majority of Knox Countians still pay less than half of our rate at $2.32.

In response to your request for council suggestions, I encourage you to set a very obtainable goal. That is, reduce our total budget by .05 percent ($90,000) and return those monies to the taxpayers in the amount of a one-cent tax rate reduction. The following are my suggestions for accomplishing this goal. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Columns, Opinion Tagged With: budget, Chamber of Commerce, city budget, City Council, city manager, Convention and Visitors Bureau, CVB, Fiscal Year 2015, Kroger, Kroger Marketplace, library, library funding, Mark Watson, Parker Hardy, property tax rate, revenue, senior management, spending, staff, tax cut, tax rate reduction, travel, travel expenses, Trina Baughn, UPF, uranium processing facility

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