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Resident urges council to hold property tax levy steady as reassessments push bills higher
Summary
At a Mount Vernon City Council public hearing, resident Dominique Fleming Keeper urged officials to keep the levy rate unchanged after a recent reassessment that she said raised her home assessment by about 40%, warning higher taxes will 'crush' many families; staff said the city is holding the levy but state rollback and school/county levies affect final bills.
Dominique Fleming Keeper, a Mount Vernon–area resident, told the City Council during a public hearing that recent reassessments have made homeownership unaffordable for many local households and urged the council to hold any property tax increases steady.
"You're going to crush a lot of people," Dominique Fleming Keeper said, describing an assessment increase she estimated at nearly 40% and saying her wage growth (less than 2% this year) has not kept pace with rising living costs.
City staff responded that the city is keeping its levy rate steady for 2026–27 but cautioned that taxpayers may still see increases because of state 'rollback' calculations and levies the council does not control, including county and school levies. Staff summarized the mechanics: the rollback percentage that determines the taxable share of a home's assessed value fluctuates each year, and reassessments combined with that percentage determine a homeowner's final bill.
Why this matters: the public hearing is part of the statutorily required process before the council can finalize and adopt the municipal budget and levy. Mount Vernon staff told the council the formal adoption is scheduled for the April 20 meeting at 6:30 p.m. and that a more detailed budget presentation will be posted on the city's website next week.
Council and staff framed the issue as partly outside the city's direct control. Staff noted two large constraints on municipal decision-making: (1) the state rollback formula and (2) the size of other local levies (school and county), which together can produce higher bills even when the city's levy rate remains unchanged. Staff used an illustrative figure discussed at the hearing (roughly a 3.28% illustrative change tied to rollback/reassessment in the record) and said the state requires municipalities to report a $100,000 baseline even though few homes in Mount Vernon have that value.
The hearing drew additional procedural discussion about timing and public notice. Staff said they had met with legislators about simplifying property tax reporting and that the state-created notice sent by county assessors is often confusing to taxpayers. The council closed the hearing and confirmed the adoption vote would occur at the April 20 meeting.
The council did not change its levy rate at this hearing; members said they would continue to monitor reassessment, state action on property tax reform, and upcoming local capital costs that may affect future levies.
