Midway City Council members are exploring what they have to do — and what they will do with the results — to enact a millage rate.

Council members discussed the need for a property tax and what it would fund with those proceeds.

“We know public safety is one of our biggest needs here,” Mayor pro tem Annie Foskey said.

City clerk Lynette Osborne provided the council with a projection of how much money the city would take in at different millage rate levels. At 3 mills, based on the city’s 2025 digest, the city could collect $243,326 and at 8 mills, it could bring in nearly $650,000.

Council members expressed trying to keep the burden on property owners as low as possible.

“We’re not a big city,” Mayor Malcolm Williams said. “We have had global growth in our city.”

The city also would have to have an intergovernmental agreement with the Liberty County tax commissioner’s office to collect the tax.

Shana Moss, the Walthourville city clerk, described how her city enacted its millage rate and the steps needed to do so.

“We don’t want any one to go through the growing pains we had to go through,” she said. “We’ll help any way we can.”

Midway has gone from a volunteer fire department to a paid department, and Walthourville had done the same thing, Moss said.

“We reduced the time it takes for our fire fighters to get to a call,” Moss said of going to a paid, fulltime department.

Midway’s department, Chief Craig Reynolds said, is waiting on the results of its ISO evaluation in May. Without that in hand, the city’s current ISO rating is a 10. Because of that, the city has to provide letters to homeowners and businesses telling them the city’s department is a 24/7 operation with good fire hydrants and a good water supply, Reynolds added, in order for them to get a break on their property insurance coverage. Should Midway enact a millage rate, city council would have to hold — by state law — three hearings on the new millage rate. At least one has to start between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m., in order to allow residents who work during the day to attend.

The city also must issue a press release stating it will increase the millage and run an advertisement in the legal organ.

The city also is recognizing its 101st birthday, and Mayor Williams invited residents to stop by city hall August 3–7 from 8 a.m.–5 p.m. for what he said would be a “sweet treat.”