Roane County property owners will pay an extra $0.11 on $100 of assessed property values on their next tax payment. The county commission approved the property tax increase last night.

It took nearly two hours to get to that number after a couple of amendments. One was by commissioner David Bell recommended raising the tax rate 3 and 1/2 cents with one cent for volunteer fire department needs, $0.02 for payback of the estimated $10 million dollars the county had to borrow to fix roads that were destroyed by the February floods, and 1/2 cent to fix and replace the aging sewer plant at Midway High School. That amendment failed.

Then another amendment was brought to the table by commissioner Darryl Meadows to reduce the possible increase to 9 cents instead of 11. That also failed.

The original 11 percent rate increase was brought back for a vote and it passed by a vote of 10 to 5 with Commissioners Meadows, Berry, Hendrickson, Moore, and Bell voting against the property tax rate increase.