By Ford Polk
STARKVILLE, MISS (Take 30 News) ---On Tuesday, September 17th Starkville, Mississippi alderman voted to raise property taxes. But raising taxes does bring some criticism from residents.
“My personal opinion is that the citizens of Starkville are already paying adequate taxes. But you look at the benefits that will be received and I'm not really sure they are receiving the right benefits. “said Les Miles.
Historically Starkville has had a lower property tax and compared to other cities in the state.
"if you compare us to other cities in the 20 to 30 range we are at the bottom of the barrel" said Sandra Sistrunk.
The city’s board of alderman voted to increase the millage to provide the citizens with more services. They also wanted to keep up with other similar sized cities wage rates. The board had noticed they were failing behind in the market particularly in Firemen and police.
"What we found was some of our employees fall further behind as the market moves on," Sistrunk said.
This millage increase will allow Starkville to keep up with the market rates. It will also allow Starkville to hire more fire and police personnel and will be able to adequacy employee its newest fire station, fire station five, which hasn’t been fully staffed in almost 10 years.