The final Joint Bedford County/City of Shelbyville Senior Property Tax Freeze Study Committee meeting is Tuesday, April 14, 2026, at 5:30 p.m., at the courthouse second floor meeting room.

A presentation on a Trustee’s Office tax relief/tax freeze study will be presented by County Trustee and committee member, Tonya Davis.

With this meeting, the committee will be finished and will have completed its requests from the County Rules Committee to meet and study the recommended senior property tax freeze. Now, the committee will send a report back to the County Rules Committee. Rules will then, likely, decide at some point whether it wants to send a recommendation to the County Finance Committee.

The City is also in this mix and will make its own recommendations.

Members of this committee are: County Commissioners Eric Maddox and Anita Epperson;  County Mayor Chad Graham; City Councilmen Josh Blevins and Henry Feldhaus ; City Mayor Randy Carroll; Trustee Davis and recently retired property assessor Ronda Clanton. 

The proposed senior tax freeze was first brought to County and City attention by Commissioner Maddox. Councilman Blevins joined him and has researched much of the data that's been presented and has spoken at the Rules Committee meeting, along with Maddox.

After meeeting at the County and City level for several months now, the two local officials have put together pages of information supporting such a tax freeze, like  many other TN counties are doing or have done in the past.

This senior tax freeze does not mean that seniors over 65 will no longer pay property taxes. The County could currently not afford such. 

Instead, it means if this tax freeze is approved, seniors, as long as they stay in their home and do not sell, will pay the same property tax rate set for as long as they live there. 

Note: Numbers within the  property tax system can fluctuate for various reasons. The Property Assessor's Office has finished its required state reappraisals for the coming tax season.

But an example could be: The property freeze amount will be based on the  tax rate year in which the freeze  is approved. So if you paid $1,000 in taxes in 2025 (say the senior tax rate is approved this spring) and the County/City should for some reason raise the property tax rate at the end of the fiscal year in 2026 (July1) , you would still pay $1,000.

In a nutshell,  property tax amounts are dependent on when the senior tax freeze is officially approved by local government.

Now, for seniors over 65 to qualify, they will have to fill out forms with the Trustee's office each year.  This is required to stay in the program year after year.

The senior tax freeze is a program, if approved, that would be added to the already functioning state tax "relief" program (through Trustee's office) for seniors over 65. The "freeze" will not replace the "relief." (The "relief" is an income-based  program.)

Maddox and Blevins have said they will make  sure the public gets all the information it needs regarding the senior property tax freeze. So tax numbers should become more clear for seniors when, and if, this program is approved by City/County.