The Meridian City Council is continuing to work on a budget for the upcoming 2025 fiscal year after setting the annual tax millage rate in its Tuesday night meeting.

The council voted to set the millage at 121.6 mills, with 52.7 mills going to city coffers. Chief Financial Officer Brandye Latimer said 40.54 mills will go toward the city’s general fund, 1.65 mills to police and fire retirement, 0.55 mills to general retirement and 10 mills to bond and debt payments.

The remaining millage goes to fund Meridian Public School District and Meridian Community College. Although the council is responsible for setting the millage to raise the funds needed for the educational institutions to function, both MPSD and MCC have their own budgets and operate independently from the city.

Latimer said the millage rate is a slight decrease from the current fiscal year in which millage is set at 122.94 mills.

Councilman George Thomas said his concern is that the city is asking for roughly the same millage as it is getting now, but a state-mandated reassessment of property in Lauderdale County has seen property values rise. The result, he said, is that Meridian residents will owe more taxes.

“My concern is the value of a mill went up significantly, but the city is asking for the same millage,” he said.

One mill is equal to $1 for every $1,000 of the assessed value of a property. Assessed value is 10% of the appraised value for residential property and 15% for business and other property. For example, a home appraised at $100,000 has an assessed value of $10,000, so the property owner would pay roughly $10 per mill. As a property increases in value, the cost per mill the homeowner pays in taxes will also rise.

Latimer said the reassessment raised the value of a mill in the city roughly $44,000 from $379,759 to $424,430.

Thomas, who voted against the millage rate, said he wanted to look at reducing the millage rate further to ease the burden on city residents.

“Whatever the general fund budget is, I’d lower it a mill or at least half a mill,” he said.

With the millage rate set, the council now turns its focus to passing an FY2025 budget. The budget must be finalized and voted on before the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Thomas said he is frustrated because every budget the city administration sends out is different, and it is difficult to know if the numbers being used are accurate or subject to change later on.

“It’s constant change, change, change,” he said.

Councilman Joe Norwood Jr. said he shares Thomas’ concern about last minute changes and proposes moving a portion of the funds budgeted for each department to the council-controlled legislative fund until things settle and the council can get a better idea what is going on.

Also on the table is roughly $1.2 million included in the upcoming budget for raises for current employees. Some of the raises would put employees outside the authorized pay range, called pay bands, for their positions, requiring council action to modify the pay band. The city administration has been lobbying the council to end the use of pay bands and move instead to a step-based pay grade system, but that has not yet come to a vote.

Thomas said he supports raising pay for city employees, but the current track gives the impression the city is trying to be sneaky and operate outside the pay band system. The city, he said, is “going about it the wrong way.”

Mayor Jimmie Smith said the city cannot attract and retain talented employees if it does not raise the pay for the positions. Meridian, he said, is competing with private industry and other governments to find skilled workers.

“If we don’t compete, we will lose our employees,” he said.

In his comments at the end of the meeting, Thomas called for the public to weigh in on the city’s proposed spending for the next year as the council looks to finalize the budget. By setting the millage rate, he said, the council now has a number of what it can spend, but it needs residents’ input to decide how to spend it.

“We now know how much money we’ll have,” he said. “Now we need the public to come tell us how to spend it.”

The City Council is set to hold a special called meeting at 9:45 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 24, to adopt a budget for the 2025 fiscal year.