The Pineville City Council voted unanimously to lower the city’s tax rate to 26.7 cents per $100 of assessed value on both personal and real property at Monday’s regular meeting. The tax rate had been 28.3 cents per $100.

Mayor Scott said the city had seen a $2 million increase in assessments this year, which allowed him the leeway to propose the 1.6 cent decrease.

“People may ask why we took the compensating rate last year and then came back with a reduction this year,” he said. “One of the things is that we were applying for all of these grants and one of the boxes you have to check asks if you’ve been taking the compensating rate or increasing revenue. When you check no then they’re less likely to give you money if you’re not helping yourself. We’re going to be out of the large grant applying business for a while now (that the funding is in place to complete the Courthouse Square project.)”

He said a big part of the increase in assessments was from the tax moratorium for downtown property owners who invested in fixing up their buildings. Those properties were excluded from property taxes for five years and we’re back on the rolls this year and those properties were assessed at higher values because of the improvements that were made.

“That was about $1 million of it and the other $1 million was in increased assessments because property values have increased across the board,” Madon said.

Madon also shared some of the research he had done while looking into tax rates. He said the average city rate in Kentucky was about 27.2.

“We’re going to be under the average and hopefully we can continue to lower that,” he said. “I’m not advocating for people to have increased property assessments but I’m hoping we can continue to bring businesses in that will increase the total amount of our assessments.”

Madon also noted the tax rates of several surrounding cities: Middlesboro’s is 6.9, Barbourville’s is 27.0, Corbin’s is 31.2, London’s is 7.9, Harlan’s is 46.0, and Benham, Cumberland, Lynch, Evarts and Loyall  range between 35 and 55.

“One thing a lot of people get confused with is our county tax bill because it’s always higher than the city’s. The county’s bill includes the Extension Service, Garbage and Refuse, the Health Department, Library and then the general Fiscal Court,” he said. “When I was looking these up today I noticed that our county’s tax rate is about 20 points under the state average. I thought that was interesting.”

Also on Monday, the council voted to award the bid for milling and blacktopping the side streets adjoining Courthouse Square to Hinkle Construction for $241,702. It was the only bid received.

Madon said the funding for the blacktopping comes from a savings of $290,000 by going from series 1 to series 2 stone on the Courthouse Square project. He shared correspondence from the project engineers signing off on the change.

“They actually brought the stone down here for us to look at. I looked at it with Tammy (Jones) and Johnna (Callebs) and we really liked the series stone better,” Madon said. “That $290,000 savings means we can blacktop Cherry Street, Pine Street, Walnut, Virginia, Kentucky and Summit and still have about $50,000 which we will probably use on the sidewalks going into the courthouse.”

The milling and blacktopping can start right away on the portions of those streets that are not involved in the Courthouse Square project. Madon added that Hinkle would also be doing the final blacktopping after the project is completed so they would be able to make sure the streets match up smoothly.

Madon also provided a brief update on the Courthouse Square project. KU has removed all of their light poles around the square and conduit is being run to house the wires underground. That should be finished in the next week and Green Construction has officially been awarded the contract and is expected to start their work on the square by the end of August. Madon is was hopeful that the project could be completed within four to six months.

“If the weather cooperates and everything goes smoothly then we could possibly be looking at having everything done by around the first of the year,” he said. “Of course nothing has gone smooth yet.”

With Callebs and Jones both out of town, Madon gave a Main Street report.

On August 24 Grammy-nominated Bluegrass artist Nathan Stanley will be performing at the Bell Theater. He is the grandson of Ralph Stanley. Tickets are available through Eventbrite and at City Hall.

Work has started on the Main Street Park next to the theater. Walls that were burned are being taken out to make room for bathrooms and a new dressing room for the theater.

“That’s why the park is blocked off and it will be down for a couple of months,” Madon said. “That’s part of what they’re doing with that $50,000 T-Mobile grant.”