County-by-County: Comparing the Property Tax Rates

Many of you have asked me just what the tax rates are for our surrounding counties.

Of course, this question was sparked by the recent story in the Robertson County Times discussing the possible property tax increase.

The numbers I pulled below are the “base” property tax rates. I say “base” because they do not represent the entire tax rate. Municipalities within the respective counties have additional taxes on top of the respective county taxes. Some counties, such as Cheatam County have additional taxes for fire districts. I have not included those for comparison since it is hard to compare based on those separate taxes.

If you would like to investigate further, please follow this link to the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury – Division of Property Assessment. A link can be found here: 2010 PROPERTY TAX RATES:

County                      Property Tax Rate

North Middle Tennessee

Cheatam County              $              2.78                       

Sumner                               $             2.02.08 

Robertson                           $              2.61

Dickson                                $              2.85

Montgomery                     $              2.88

Trousdale                            $              3.00

Wilson                                 $              2.4327

Middle/Southern Middle Tennessee

Davidson                             $              3.56

Rutherford                         $              2.4652

Maury                                   $              2.59

Williamson                        $              2.26

Marshall                              $              3.09

Bedford                               $              2.27

County Health Rankings

If you are like me, you continued to hear about the county health rankings that were released this week.

But if you were like me, you may not have not known how they were compiled, or just what they meant in detail…

Robertson County’s own Scott Raynes (of NorthCrest Medical Center) has an op-ed in The Tennesseean that helps break these numbers down.

TCCA Executive Director David Connor shares some additional information, and also a link that has a county-by-county break down of the rankings themselves.

For those who are curious, Robertson County ranked 9^th.

Here’s how our neighbor counties fared:

Sumner                   - 2^nd

Wilson                   - 6^th

Montgomery         - 10^th

Davidson              - 13^th

Cheatam              - 21^st

Dickson               - 31^st

Shannon Polen

It has been difficult to keep up with this story as it unfolds. It even crept into the national media.

And, to think, I did not even know of the arrest but for a telephone call I received from Jim Bellis of the Robertson County Times letting me know of the story he broke this morning:

Robertson County Commissioner Shannon Polen was arrested at his home Tuesday night by officials from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Office of Special Investigations with the Tennessee Attorney General.

Polen was charged with three felony counts of theft of property and taken to the Davidson County Jail for booking.

Held on a total of $400,000 bond, Polen made news recently after three civil lawsuits were filed against him for what has been described as a “Ponzi Scheme,” by some. He will now appear in court on April 4 to begin to answer his charges.

The Times will continue to update as further information becomes available .

Here are the other outlets that I have been keeping track throughout the day:

MSNBC here.

WTVF – Channel 5 here.

WSMV-TV - Channel 4 here & here.

As your RCC Ethics Committee Chairman, rest assured the RCC is keeping close track of these allegations as they unfold. Many have asked just what action the RCC will take in the days and weeks ahead.

We must remember that these allegations are unfolding at this point, and that this is an evolving process. The RCC Ethics Committee is keeping eyes and ears open monitoring this situation but due to the nature of these unfolding investigations, we cannot become another investigatory entity.

County, State and Federal officials are currently at work on their own investigations.

Of course, this investigation, and the connotations of this investigation do not cast Robertson County in a positive light. It is a dark day for everyone involved. It is our hope that the civil and criminal justice systems will bring Robertson County swift justice.

UPDATE - 4/4/2011: Check out the update to this post - "Commissioner Shannon Polen Resigns"

2010 Census: More Notes & Picture Graph

This post on the 2010 Census results last week was a very popular post here at ‘From the Blackpatch.’

More and more data continues to emerge as relates to population information. TCCA Executive Director David Connor had a follow-up post on more census data.

Check out the link to this picture-graph. It shows the percentage growth for counties in Tennessee. It is quite interesting to note the growth in and around Middle Tennessee. It is one of the first that I have seen to picture Robertson County’s growth.

I would expect the trends to do nothing but continue in the next ten years here in north middle Tennessee.

Will we plan for this growth, or will we react to this growth?

Highway 431 Expansion

Most everyone knows the expansion so far, but I wanted to pass this along nevertheless.

I will be interested to see what can be done with further expansion towards I-24. In conversations with our own Representative Evans, he has expressed before that more conversations are being had about that effort.

Here are some of the details (the rest of the story can be found here):

[Allan] Ellis said the widening of the road to William A. Batson Parkway is being referred to as Phase One, while Phase Two is expected to widen the road a little further south down 431.

“We know commuters are very interested in TDOT widening that road all the way down to Interstate 24, but TDOT hasn’t planned that yet. They are planning on, sometime in the future, continuing the divided four lane highway about 3-1/2 more miles to where Old Highway 431 comes into Highway 431.”

Ellis explained that there are several places where Old Highway 431 intersects with Highway 431. The one referenced is just south of the Coopertown border, near the Pebble Brook Golf Course.