New Boston residents will be able to speak to city officials on the proposed tax increase and the budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year.

The City of New Boston will be holding two public hearings Tuesday before the regular council meeting.

The hearings will be held in the council chambers beginning at 6 pm.

The first hearing will address the proposed three cent tax increase which will raise the current rate from $0.367025 to $0.397025 per $100 of assessed property value.

“That’s primarily to deal with inflation. The inflation rate in ‘21 was 7.0 percent. Last year it was 6.5 percent. We didn’t raise taxes either time outside of just to cover our debt. This year we have to. Fuel’s costing more, maintenance on vehicles, maintenance on our streets and all of that so the taxes have almost got to go up,” said Wayne Dial, city administrator.

“It’s not something the council wanted to do, but at 3 cents per $100, I think that’s a reasonable expectation for us to be able to cover a little more of our cost. It’s that or cut back services. We don’t want to do that. We expect to be able to provide a high service to our taxpayers here and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Despite an increase, the proposed rate is lower than that of the cities of DeKalb, Hooks, Maud and Texarkana, Texas, whose rates are $0.50991, $0.705822, $0.558264 and $0.65 respectively.

The public budget hearing will follow.

The city council will vote on a proposed three cent increase in their regular meeting which will follow the budget hearing.