The Knoxville School Board has set public hearings for next year’s certified budget.

The first public hearing will be a special board meeting that will be held on March 24th right before the normal board meeting, and the next one will be on April 14th. These public hearings are required by state law for the community to be able to voice their opinion on the upcoming certified budget. Citizens will be receiving the property tax rate notice in the mail and School Business Manager Craig Mobley says the format of it can look like the rate is increased based on how the state formats assessed value, but in reality, the rate is actually going down five cents per $1,000 in assessed value. 

“The state program doesn’t really look at the property tax rate from an apples-to-apples viewpoint. It builds in assessed valuation increase, which to me is not fair. It shows a larger property tax rate increase so I want people to know that our proposed property tax is actually going down by a nickel per $1,000 in assessed valuation and of course we know the school district has no control over anyone’s assessed valuation. We just control the rate and we are proposing to lower that rate by a nickel per $1,000.”

Hear more from Mobley on today’s Let’s Talk Knoxville.