Some residents in South Pittsburg are outraged over a 138% property tax increase passed over the summer they feel is heaping an unjust financial burden on many city taxpayers.
On June 24, the city commission voted 4-0 to increase the property tax rate from $0.7391 per $100 of assessed value to $1.74, according to the Tennessee comptroller and city records. One commissioner, Cameron Moss, was absent and didn’t cast a vote but voted in favor of the increase on the budget’s first reading in May. Following the tax hike, combined with Marion County’s rate of $1.7603, city taxpayers face a total rate of a little more than $3.50 per $100 of assessed value.
In other words, 25% of a home (the residential percentage taxed in Tennessee) with an assessed value of $200,000 is $50,000. That figure is multiplied by the property tax rate — in South Pittsburg’s case, $1.74 — for a city tax bill of about $870. Add another approximately $880 for the county, and the total annual tax bill for that property is $1,750.
The sitting mayor, Samantha Rector, and three of the four members of the South Pittsburg City Commission, Allison Buchanan, Cheryl Kellermann and Moss, did not run for reelection in November. The fourth commissioner, Matt Stone has two more years in his term.