After a public hearing Monday night, the East Central College board of trustees voted unanimously to maintain the same property tax rate for the 2016-17 year as it has the past several years.The tax rate was set at .4541 cents per $100 in assessed valuation.The tax rate is broken into operating and debt service funds. The operating tax rate is .3700 per $100 in assessed valuation and the debt service levy is .0841 per $100 in assessed valuation.The tax rate is set to produce revenues of at least $6,284,527, which the operating budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 shows to be required from the property tax.The debt service levy is set to produce revenues of at least $1.8 million, which is required to meet the debt service of the college for the calendar year beginning Jan. 1, 2017.Phil Pena, ECC vice president of finance and administration, noted that taxable real estate in the district increased by $24.4 million, from $1,287,211,914 last year to $1,312,587,999 this year — an increase of 2 percent.Taxable personal property increased $24 million, or 7.2 percent, from $333,669,822 in the previous tax year to $357,652,762 this tax year.In all, the valuation of taxable property in the junior college district increased $49.4 million, which represents an overall increase of 3 percent. The previous tax year valuation was $1,620,881,736 and this year it’s $1,670,240,762.No citizens appeared before the board to comment on the proposed tax rate.Ten years ago, when voters authorized a general obligation bond issue for construction of the health and science building, the college committed to maintaining the debt service levy at its then-current rate.The college’s taxing district takes in approximately 1,000 square miles and includes the major portion of Franklin County and smaller portions of Crawford, Gasconade, St. Charles, Warren and Washington counties.East Central College