Oronogo tax levy stays the same

The Oronogo Board of Aldermen, following a public hearing on Monday, voted to leave the tax rate the same.

Per $100 assessed valuation, the rate will be $0.2319 for the general fund and $0.1107 for the street fund.

The rates are projected to raise $115,000 ($100,000 last year) for the general fund and $39,000 ($30,000 last year) for the street fund.

The city’s current total valuation is $43,036,128. That’s an $847,869 increase over last year. New construction is listed at $441,520, while it was $1,440,350 a year ago.

The board also reached a consensus to move forward with two recommendations made by Jason Grossman (2nd Ward).

He provided information showing that the city is close to meeting the requirements to be a Tree City USA and a Purple Heart City.

The Tree City USA program is a function of the Arbor Day Foundation.

Becoming a Purple Heart City would acknowledge that Oronogo honors its veterans who have earned Purple Hearts for being wounded during combat.

In other action:

• Police Chief Steven Weaver noted the effort his department is making this summer to have nuisance yards cleaned up, either by the property owners or by the city, with the mowing costs placed as a tax lien on the property. There’s one particular problem, on the northwest corner of Central and John streets, where the property is on Jasper County’s delinquent tax sale list. Once it’s purchased, it’s believed nothing will be able to be done with the property for one year.

• Voted to pay Neal’s Construction $100,387 for work done on replacing the sewer lift station on Route MM. That job is almost finished.

• Approved a liquor license for Route 96 Smokes & Liquor, a new business in the shopping center at Highway 96 and Route D.

• Approved a payment of $9,500 for Edmunds Govetech to go back three years as it converts the city’s financial data to its system.

In June 2025, the board approved an annual contract with the firm not to exceed $49,750.

City Clerk Cyndi Jennings has said she finally expects the conversion from gWorks to Edmunds to be completed by Oct. 6.

Last month’s utility billing was delayed because of software problems.

Jessica Bauer, gWorks senior manager for strategic events and marketing programs, says in an email that the issue was a bug in how sewer averages were calculating. “Our team worked on it as quickly as possible, and it is permanently resolved, and bills went out July 16 as the city communicated to customers.

“I won’t pretend the delay didn’t cause inconvenience for Oronogo staff and residents, because it did. But your readers deserve to know it was taken seriously and fixed for good, not patched over.”

Contrary to the Sentinel’s statement that other cities, as well, are leaving gWorks, Bauer said that “doesn’t match what we see across Missouri. We have Missouri communities on our cloud platform today who are having a genuinely good experience.

“Oronogo made the decision that works for them, and we respect that.”