Metro Wants to Sell Uncollected Property Taxes

Metro Council continues to hold budget meetings this week, in advance of the June 30th deadline to pass a budget.

Mayor Bill Purcell’s 1-point-5-billion dollar budget includes a new revenue source, which has been question by several council members. Metro Finance director David Manning says the city is going to sell 18-and-a-half million dollars worth of uncollected property taxes to an investor.

“We continue, the trustee’s office and the courts, continue to collect property taxes as they have in the past, but when we collect them, instead of them going into the government they go to the company who bought them. That basically allows us to utilize the dollars now and it allows the company the benefit of interest rate on the money as they would with any other kind of sale of that type.”

Manning says the city has about 30-million dollars in uncollected property taxes this year, and says the 18-million the city expects to collect is a “conservative estimate.”

The state legislature passed a bill this session allowing local governments to get this kind of advance payment, once liens are placed on property where taxes are owed. Manning says 28 other states already use it.

Council is meeting every Tuesday in June to get the budget past its three readings, instead of the usual twice a month. At last night’s meeting, the annual Capital Improvements Budget was approved on final reading, which is the wish-list of projects council members hope to see funded in coming years.