The Oak Ridge City Council has a special meeting tonight to discuss U.S. Department of Energy support and funding. (File photo/August 2013)
The Oak Ridge City Council will discuss U.S. Department of Energy funding and support during a special meeting tonight. It’s described at least in part as an “information-gathering session.”
The special meeting was called by City Council members Trina Baughn and Charlie Hensley. Hensley, in particular, has raised questions about whether DOE is paying its fair share to the city.
Here’s the language outlining tonight’s discussion:
“to discuss and possibly take action on a plan to engage DOE officials with regards to their obligations to the City of Oak Ridge and its citizenry. Let it [the special meeting request] include formally requesting, in writing, a DOE Community Assistance Review as allowed within AECA 1955, PL 84-221, DOE Order 2100.12A, and other supporting legislation, including those self-sufficiency plans dating from 1980 through a Council Resolution and other joint local government collaborative action to include a specific date for a response.”
The meeting, which starts at 7 p.m. today (Monday, October 20), will also include a presentation by former City Council member Leonard Abbatiello.
In a memo to City Council, Oak Ridge City Manager Mark S. Watson said Council members have asked that current members be advised of financial efforts by DOE, obtaining “various perspectives on how the city may fund city services in the future with a correct share of financial support from the U.S. government.”
The City of Oak Ridge was established as a city in 1959, and it has three federal sites—Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the former K-25 gaseous diffusion site, and Y-12 National Security Complex—as well as many DOE support facilities.
“As a result of serving these facilities, the City of Oak Ridge has many unique public service requirements, untypical of many cities of our size, such as radioactive emergency response, fire protection for large facilities, external police observation, and cultural/historical projects,” Watson said.
For many years, he said, DOE has provided funding through a payment in lieu of taxes, or PILT, to replace standard property taxes for the tax-exempt property owned by DOE. But over the years, Council members have suggested the rate is too low.
“Additional efforts have been made by the city to obtain additional revenues through such matters as direct appropriation, land transfers, tipping fees, and contracts for services,” Watson said.
The special meeting starts at 7 p.m. today in the Oak Ridge Municipal Building Courtroom. See the agenda here.
WK Hyatt says
The PILT is at levels it was in 1960, way too low. Other DOE Cities get far more support. I urge Council to press this issue with DOE, and our elected representatives in Washington. Both Oak Ridge and Anderson County need to lower property and business taxes in light of the decline in home values here, especially among the older houses. AC has these houses appraised at 2010 levels which is far above what the houses can actually sell for in this depressed market. While the Knoxville housing market recovers, the Oak Ridge market is getting worse with realtors trying to get sellers to cut prices to give away forclosure levels, $10K to $20K below the tax appraisals. DOE should increase their level of payment since they continue to occupy large amounts of land that the city could use, and most new hires at the plants are being steered toward Knoxville because of the tax issues, they don’t even look at Oak Ridge housing and most will tell you they never consider it. The root cause of this is the PILT, if it was adjusted to proper levels, then both property and business would improve and eventually we might get enough private investment to recover.
Raymond Charles Kircher says
It is going to be a tough sell when the Fed’s claim our city has been handing out special tax structures like we have money. How are these two going to tell the Feds we need more money from them, while giving money away on our future citizens’ credit? The discussion makes sense, but our council’s base reason of our city needs more money is just not a fiscal picture anyone can draw up any time soon. Has some wrong decisions been made by past leadership? You bet there was, going into this as our problem is them, is completely wrong. Hope they don’t go down that road.