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Lower values have county looking at higher tax rate

Thu, 08/10/2017 - 4:58 pm

County commissioners received an overview of the FY 18 budget during a workshop Monday afternoon.

Because of a $46 million drop in tax rolls, the effective tax rate, which raises the same amount of money as last year, is 58.5 cents per $100 valuation while the rollback rate is 49.53 cents per $100 valuation. Each penny of tax rate brings in $114,073, according to a presentation.

The budget includes an estimated $8,098,407 in revenue with an estimated $8,821,624 in expenses, forcing another $786,271 to be taken out of reserves throughout the different areas of the budget, leaving the county with a net positive of $63,054.

Pct. 3 Commissioner Henry Birdwell spoke of a common sentiment of all the commissioners.

“We can’t keep taking out of reserves,” Birdwell said.

County Judge Mitchell Davenport said the county will have to cut $477,885 to avoid the possibility of a rollback. As part of this year’s budget, Davenport had given all county employees a five percent pay raise.

Counties throughout the state are watching things in Austin very closely as the state wants to enact a law that anything over four percent means an automatic rollback election. Presently, it’s eight percent and over where an election can be held, not automatically, but through a voters petition.

To read the complete article, see the Aug. 11 edition of the Herald-Gazette.