City Council Sets Taxes, Boundaries

In a brief special meeting Monday night, the Jackson City Council approved the 2025 property tax rates and took a major step toward modernizing the city’s boundary maps after years of confusion.

The council, with five members present, voted to approve Ordinance 111325B, a sweeping update to the city’s official boundary descriptions.  Mayor Laura Thomas informed the council that the ordinance codified the official boundaries of the city, which had been approved over the years but had never been updated at the Secretary of State’s office.

“This has been years in the making,” Thomas said.  “I have been working on this project for years… right in the middle of the pandemic, and then the floods hit,” she explained.

According to Thomas, the effort aims to replace decades-old, often inaccurate surveys with modern GPS and GIS-based maps.

The mayor informed the Council that the measure does not annex any new property, but rather is a “map-correcting ordinance.”

Council members agreed the update is overdue, and Tommy Noble said that many were unsure “what’s in the city [and] what’s not.”  “That needs to be straightened out,” he said.

The Jackson City Council also approved the new tax rates for the city by approving the 2025 Taxing Rates.  

Mayor Laura Thomas said as the meeting opened that it was “the time of the year that everybody's really excited about paying taxes.”

The council reaffirmed the compensating tax rate of 0.2800, which remains unchanged from the rate set last year.  Thomas noted that residents may notice differences in their bills due to changes in property valuations.  Mayor Thomas reinforced the point: “It doesn't mean that you'll pay the same amount of taxes.” 

Tax bills are expected to arrive by December 1, with a 2% early payment discount available through December 31. Penalties climb to 5% after 90 days and 21% thereafter.

In other action, the Council approved the final payments for two grant-funded infrastructure projects.  The city’s governing board approved payment of $36,979 for the Federal Place Apartments CDBG project and $13,236.84 for the Beverly Heights & Sigmund Drive waterline project. 

Thomas said that the Siegman project had excess funds that were used to purchase and replace several water meters and other approved supplies.  “We wanted to make sure we spent every dollar of the grant, and we have,” she said.

The twenty-minute special-called meeting was attended by Council members Renee Haddix, Steven McIntosh, Jason Hall, Debbe Miller, and Tommy Noble.