McMinnville property owners may know in a few weeks if they will be hit with a property tax increase.

The state of Tennessee urges local governments to have their budgets set by June 30 because July 1 is the beginning of the next fiscal year. However, governments can push past that deadline using continuing resolutions. 

“I’ve checked around and nobody, but nobody, turns in a budget by June 30,” said Alderman Everett Brock. “We’ve been trying to do that. Everybody does a continuing resolution to give them time to look at the numbers coming in.”

That statement was made when the city Finance Committee met to approve the consolidated budget and make a recommendation to the full Board of Mayor and Alderman regarding a property tax rate for fiscal year 2021-22.

Brock says he doesn’t want to rush the budget through without seeing more of the final end-of-the-year numbers. 

“I don’t feel comfortable right now approving this budget without looking at some more numbers,” said Brock. “We have some numbers – some expense numbers that go through the middle of May. We don’t have all of the numbers. I would like to wait until we get the numbers into June before we set a tax rate and decide what our budget is going to be. I don’t want to rush this. If we can wait another two to three weeks and get the numbers through the middle of June, we can estimate the rest of the numbers.” 

The use of continuing resolutions is not something new within city government.

“I’ve been on the board 11 years and I don’t ever remember us not doing a continuing resolution,” said Brock. “Not that I want to turn something in late, but everybody uses continuing resolutions.”

Finance Committee members made no recommendation on the consolidated budget, nor any suggestion on the property tax rate.