https://www.facebook.com/804766458509746/posts/777536211232771
Oak Harbor City Councilor Bryan Stucky posted this to his Facebook page on .
The city is looking into refinancing our debt for the clean water facility.
This restructuring of the debt would save the average household $21.70. However, as the article states the city would likely be increasing the utility tax to be in line with other municipalities. The city is required to pay for indigent defense fund (approx. 215k), and now a cyber security expert (approx. 150k) the latter of which we did not have to do in the past (We were allowed to contract on an as needed basis). Utility taxes would be used to pay for these items, with the possibility of other items in the future (such as police and city infrastructure upkeep).
With the restructuring of the debt and the increase in the utility tax the overall savings per household would be $16 a month. I understand there are those who may concentrate on the $5.70 “Cost” instead of the $16 overall savings. However the other option we were looking at was a B&O tax, which we shot down a few meetings ago (You can see the overwhelmingly negative feedback regarding that lower on this page when I posted on it last).
The final vote will be taken at our July 9th meeting.
https://www.whidbeynewstimes.com/news/city-proposes-increasing-utility-tax-reducing-sewer-rates/
