Ten cents

Weekly update #341 8/2/2026 to 8/8/2026

Less than ten cents is the difference over the years. Before that though, let me share some of my week serving as mayor of the best small town in America.

If you haven’t attended a National Night Out here in Seymour, I would encourage you to mark your calendar for the first Tuesday in August. For several years now the team over at Jamestown Apartments has hosted a location for this nationwide event, and it has been fun year after year. This year included prizes from area businesses, free food provided by Outreach Ministries Seymour, free sno cones from Fraternal Order of Police, and many booths with information for those in attendance. The smiling faces were plentiful this year, and I would imagine that they will be again in 2027. Go ahead and mark that calendar for the first Tuesday in August now and watch for information as we get closer to the date next year. Thank you to Myra and the team at Jamestown Apartments for hosting each year.

This week, I learned that Seymour’s Net Accessed Value, or NAV for short, will increase for 2027. NAV is based on the total taxable value of all real property (buildings) and personal property (equipment) after you take off all exemptions and deductions created by state law. This is the fifth year in a row that our NAV has increased, and 2027 will be the third year we have been able to stay over $1 billion in NAV. The little over two percent increase this year puts us at over a 32% increase since the beginning of 2020. Our NAV plays a part in setting our tax rate year after year. Since we don’t have a ton of new housing starts, a major part of that increase comes from investments by local industry on the personal property side which are often abated and come onto the NAV incrementally over the first ten years of service and means we should see several more years of growth as they do. To everyone who has built a new home, renovated an existing one, and all the industrial investment, thank you for continuing to invest in Seymour.

While there are several other areas I could speak on, I feel like the last paragraph is a good segway back into that less than ten cents intro. When I started as mayor on January 1, 2020, our tax rate was $1.3316. In 2026, it is $1.3371 or $0.0055 higher. Over the years, we have been patient trying to time our investments in things like fire trucks, a new fire station, and the current pool project to never move our tax rate more than $0.10 either direction. This gives our residents a chance to know pretty closely what to expect year after year. Some years it is not easy as things change at the state level. Last year we were even told not to talk about tax rates because Senate Enrolled Act 1 from 2025 would have an effect on tax rates for several years to come. For 2026, Seymour’s Department heads made choices, at my request, of how to utilize half the normal cost of living increase on equipment and materials so that we didn’t have to reduce the cost of living increase we gave to our team members. That, however, is not something we can do year after year and expect to keep up. For 2027, we have built our budget around three percent increases across the board. That increase in NAV that I mentioned in the last paragraph will help offset this, but for 2028, unless the state adjusts what was put in place via SEA-1 in 2025, we will see a shortfall of close to $2 million. The 2027 session is a good chance for them to correct budgetary items, and if we are lucky, we will see them find a way to correct assessments which have caused most of the property tax conversations over the last few years because even though my team has managed to keep rates within ten cents, many have seen assessments go up causing them to pay more than the year before. We all know taxes are a complex issue, and I could go on for pages on the topic, but I won’t. Instead I will leave you with a quote from Warren Buffett, not about fiscal stability, but instead about emotional stability, "The key to success is emotional stability."