News Photo by Darby Hinkley The Carmeuse Lime and Stone plant is seen from its main entrance near Rogers City on Thursday.

ROGERS CITY — Even though Rogers City reached a tax deal with Carmeuse Americas, the city still hasn’t ruled out a special assessment tax for police services.

The city said in February an assessment could be considered depending on how the tax case played out and how Rogers City’s finances would be impacted from the outcome.

The tax agreement means the case will not go before the state’s Tax Tribunal. The plant was assessed at about $10.3 million in 2020, but that was reduced in the agreement to $7,959,650 million — far off from the $20.6 million the city said it had the plant valued at.

With the agreement, the city will lose about $40,000 in property tax revenue, and will need to pay back that same amount for the 2020 taxes the plant paid.

The city had originally feared it might lose as much as $100,000 from its $1.9 million annual budget.

City Manager Joe Hefele said any loss of revenue is important, especially when inflation is on the rise and revenues shrink. He said the city would continue to explore ways to keep the budget and savings healthy, not ruling out an assessment.

“The options we have are to cut expenses, increase revenue, or to have a combination of both,” he said. “We will explore all of our options.”

Rogers City Mayor Scott McLennan said letting the case go before the tribunal came with risks because things could backfire. If the tribunal ruled against the city, McLennan said, the amount of lost revenue could have been higher.

“You basically throw all of your cards in the middle and go all in and you could lose everything,” he said. “I think we did the right thing. We’ll run a tight budget and there won’t be a lot of extra money floating around, but I think this was the best thing to do.”

Carmeuse is more than a business in Rogers City, Hefele said. It supports many local programs and is an important part of the community. He said even though the two sides disagreed on the value of the plant, and what the tax payment should be, things won’t change much between the two partners.

“They are our largest taxpayer, our largest employer and our future is attached to their hip,” Hefele said. “That hasn’t and won’t change.”‘

The city will closely monitor revenues and expenses as it crafts its 2022-23 budget. Hefele said the savings are healthy thanks to the city council being proactive. He said the goal was to have a healthy fund balance, so when unexpected expenses or large loss of revenue occurs, the city has a little cushion to fall back on.

Rogers City’s fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30.