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Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Council Monday, September 21, 2015 Page 15 municipality is taxed in the same type of income, is exempt in the same -type of income-and the only variable between the municipality really is whatever their tax rate is. The forms will be unified. They will be the same. They will be much more friendlier for businesses who are here to retain- them as well as hopefully-to attract new businesses.- House Bill -5 -which encompasses all those changes was passed this year. It is effective January 1, 2016. We are creating a new - - - - - Chapter witlun_our Codfied;Ordnances, Chapter -176, which will ncorporate.all of the chariges ----to the-tax--law. The-impact-ofthose-changes-to-us is-veryuery-minimal; but-we are still~equired- to adopt this unified law similar to other municipalities. The Law Department and I are finishing putting the final review comments on the attachment that goes with this reading. It will be in your packets this weekend. It's 50 pages long. If you want to read it, God bless you all. Mayor Rinker added, it may be not well known so I am speaking to the issue. We post Ron's monthly financial report on-line as soon as Council approves it. We typically get it a couple weeks ahead of time but we wait until Council has looked at it. The record to us is very important to show that on a monthly basis, and we have been doing this for several years, this is something that Ron Wynne initiated as our Fiscal Officer. He provides this overview. We get this in our packets. Council has a chance to look at it. Ultimately by publishing this on the web every resident has the opportunity and we archive this so you can go back and check. To Ron's point, six years ago our long-term debt was about $10 million more than it is. That is significant. I think it's also significant to set that into context of where we are with our income tax collections. It's good for the audience to know and the record to show: For the month of August this year, income tax collections totaled $1,237,905 which is $357,184 above last year which was $880,721 and $28,312 above our 2013 collections, that was our banner year, which at that time was $1,209,593. On the year to date basis for this year, our income tax collections are $11,502,143 which is $806,870 above last year and $226,182 above 2013. That's 82% of our budget of $14,000,000. We budget $14,000,000. We are at the 82% mark through three quarters. Our income tax collections since 2010 is shown on the chart. That's when residents voted our rate increase. At the net for this year, our General Fund balance is $16,558,051 as of August 31St That's an increase of $4,011,988 from December which at December 31St of last year was $12,546,063. In other words, we are north of $16,000,000 in our General Fund today. We have reduced our long-term debt substantially. We are looking at being able to cover most of these capital improvements that we were talking about for the last year on a cash basis which is pretty significant. This information is all on-line. Council President Marrie thanked Mayor Rinker.