The Maryville City Council began their open session August 24 with a public hearing for the topic of setting the tax levy for the city 2020-21 fiscal year.

The council approved setting the following levies per $100 assessed valuation of personal and real properties:

• General fund, 36.50¢

• Library, 28.52¢

• Parks and recreation, 40.85¢

• Debt retirement, 11.13¢

The only category from last year that changed was an increase to the debt retirement fund of 3.31¢ which is based on the next two years of bond payments.

The establishment of these tax rates is expected to generate the following property tax revenues for FY 2021: general fund, $491,730; parks and recreation fund, $550,339; debt retirement fund, $149,939 and library, $390,645.

The permitted reassessment revenue growth is the lower of the actual growth, that is the percentage increase in adjusted valuation of existing property in the current year over the prior year’s assessed valuation, the CPI, which was consumer price index of 2.3 percent as certified by the state tax commission, or five percent. The city’s actual growth was 0.1012 percent for 2020, so it represented the lowest of the three percentages and was used in the computation.

Other business attended to included:

•Approved the Transfer Station lease agreement to be extended for another year.

• Authorized a letter of acknowledgement with PeopleService for the operation and maintenance of the water and wastewater treatment system which saw an increase of approximately $4,548 based on the consumer price index of utilities of .6 percent.

The council made plans to set three August budget workshops before September 30.

Also councilmembers’ discussion and concerns centered around the COVID-19 cases reported by the Nodaway County Health Department. City Manager Greg McDanel noted he had retrieved a proposed ordinance that dated back to 2014 which spoke to crowds at house parties. He will distribute the verbage to the councilmembers for their analysis to determine if it would be suitable to enact to curb the number of people, mostly Northwest Missouri State University students, attending numerous house parties.

Within his report, McDanel told most of the South Main project’s real estate parcels’ easements have been garnered, the ladder firetruck bid specifications will be determined this week, the connection for the sanitary sewer between Eugene Field and the new public safety facility is completed and he expects the 911 emergency dispatch center in the new facility to be live by the week of September 20.