Harmar adopts $2.7M budget that includes property tax cut

The Harmar Supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to adopt a $2.7 million budget for next year that cuts the township’s property tax rate by more than a half-mill.

The move decreases the tax rate from 3.45 mills to 2.9 mills. At that rate, the owner of a property assessed at $100,000 would pay $290 in real estate taxes, or $55 less than this year.

The township’s preliminary budget, passed unanimously in November, had called for the 2021 property tax rate to remain at 3.45 mills. Supervisor Bob Exler voted in favor of the preliminary spending plan, but pushed for a Homestead Act exemption that would have reduced the assessed value for calculating property taxes on homeowners’ primary residences.

Exler continued to hold out for the Homestead Act cut on Dec. 17, when he and Supervisor Lee Biermeyer voted against the preliminary budget, creating a 2-2 deadlock.

Exler and Biermeyer had argued that the township could afford the Homestead Act cut because it was projecting a budget surplus of $1.7 million at the end of 2021.

Wednesday’s special meeting took about eight minutes to complete with Supervisors Chairman Bob Seibert proposing an even more substantial tax cut than what Exler and Biermeyer had asked for.

“These are extraordinarily bad times. We’ve got everybody struggling like the little bars and sub shops and the beer distributorships. This is the time to give everybody a break,” Seibert told the Tribune-Review. “We have a lot of small businesses in Harmar Township and collectively in good times everyone paid their fair share of taxes to support our spending to provide the services needed. We realize this is the time to cut the taxes.”

Exler was ecstatic about the outcome of Wednesday’s meeting.

“I’m so happy it’s crazy,” Exler said. “I think it’s about the best thing I can ever remember happening to Harmar. In this day and age, everybody brags if they can maintain the millage, if they don’t have an increase. We have a bunch of supervisors that really want to do good for the people, which is what we’re supposed to do.”