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Liberty council adopts lower 2025 ad valorem levy, sets aside reserve for new senior tax credit
Summary
The Liberty City Council unanimously approved a 2025 ad valorem property tax levy of 0.7929 — the lowest in 36 years — and agreed to set aside a reserve to cover uncertain revenue impacts from the recently enacted senior tax credit, Senate Bill 190.
The Liberty City Council on first reading adopted an ordinance setting the city's 2025 ad valorem property tax levy at 0.7929 for the 2026 budget year, a rate staff said would be the lowest in 36 years.
City finance staff presented the levy during a public hearing and recommended the lower rate after accounting for robust assessed-value growth and new construction. "If approved this evening, the 2025 levy would be the lowest levy rate in 36 years," said miss McClure, the city staff member who presented the levy analysis.
The levy calculation was based on the county's preliminary assessment rolls; final assessments were not yet available, McClure said. Staff reported that preliminary totals showed a roughly 15.7% aggregate increase in assessed valuation compared with 2024, driven in part by nearly $16.8 million in new construction and the rolling off of prior tax-abated industrial parcels. Staff estimated the levy would generate about $7.4 million in city revenue, roughly $520,000 more than 2024 on the preliminary numbers.
The council and budget committee discussed uncertainty tied to Senate Bill 190, the senior tax credit the county enacted in 2023. McClure said local estimates of the first-year revenue impact differed: Clay County provided an estimate in the low tens of thousands, while the city's calculations put the potential effect at roughly $115,000 to $120,000. Because the effect compounds annually and the county's methodology differs from the city's, the budget committee recommended setting aside a reserve of roughly $100,000 to offset the possible shortfall.
Council members emphasized that recent economic development and tax-abatement projects coming off abatement have bolstered the tax base. One councilmember noted that projects such as Ford and LMB have begun to produce higher taxable value, allowing the city to lower its levy while still increasing revenue.
Using the average-home example staff provided, a house valued at $300,000 in 2024 that saw an assessed valuation increase to $325,000 would see the city portion of the property tax bill rise by roughly $4 annually (about 33 cents per month) under the proposed levy, McClure said. Council members voted unanimously to waive rules to consider the ordinance on first reading and to adopt the levy ordinance on first reading.
The council opened a statutorily required public hearing; no members of the public spoke on the levy before the hearing was closed. The ordinance passed unanimously.
