County Set to Raise Property Taxes

SAN ANGELO, TX — Tom Green County is set to raise property taxes, though not as steeply as the City of San Angelo, yet the tax rate will likely remain unchanged. The county has presented its draft proposed budget following the last of eight budget sessions that concluded on Monday. The anticipated fiscal year 2025 rate of 47.290 cents per $100 of value, though unchanged from fiscal year 2024, remains well above the No New Revenue Rate of 44.685 cents, constituting a tax increase.

The fiscal year 2025 rate of 47.290 cents is 2.61 cents above the No New Revenue Rate. Last year's difference was 1.8 cents. Precinct 4 Commissioner Shawn Nanny called it a solid effort and a compromise, given the challenges inflation posed to the county payroll.

“We’ll still provide our county employees with a cost-of-living adjustment, and we had to contend with Ethicon’s property being removed from the tax rolls,” Nanny said.

Ethicon, one of the county’s largest employers, can now exempt its property from taxation due to the addition of Tax Code Section 11.36 by the Texas Legislature. The new law exempts property taxes on facilities engaged in the manufacturing or processing of medical or biomedical products for public health advancement from property taxes.

The City of San Angelo, which raised its tax rates by 3.5%, to the highest rate possible without requiring voter approval, also expressed concerns about the new tax law during its budget discussions.

Nanny praised County Judge Lane Carter for making the budget process more collaborative with fellow commissioners this year by meeting with each commissioner individually to gather input.

“You know, it really is the county judge’s budget, and he didn’t have to do that,” Nanny said. He noted that he secured some small victories for his precinct, such as identifying areas where the budget could be trimmed to fund road construction.

The county did not see any significant new tax revenue from large solar or wind projects this year. Meanwhile, the budget was particularly challenging to piece together due to pressures from the Sheriff’s Office.

“No one got everything they wanted, but I think every department head who approached the county understood that if you really need $250,000, you better ask for $1 million,” Nanny said with a touch of humor.

The fiscal year 2025 budget will allow a 5% cost-of-living pay raise across the county, a 3% raise or wage increase for critical positions, and the capability to give 1% raises for merit.

This year’s budget faced more challenges. The biggest challenge was the removal of approximately $227 million in taxable value due to the tax law changes that made Ethicon’s property tax exempt. This cost the county approximately $1.07 million in revenue. Although, in the context of $10.5 billion in taxable property on the rolls, the Ethicon tax break doesn’t seem that large. However, for fiscal year 2025, the cost of this tax break amounted to approximately half of the new property added to the county tax rolls. Last year’s total taxable property was $10 billion, or $500,000 less.

The county budget will require a few more public hearings before final adoption. These hearings will provide citizens the opportunity to offer additional feedback. County Judge Lane Carter must present a final proposed budget for fiscal year 2025 by August 15.

On August 8, 2024, the City of San Angelo unanimously approved a property tax rate of 0.7557 per $100 valuation for fiscal year 2024-2025, approximately five cents higher than the fiscal year 2023-2024 rate. This rate is the maximum increase allowed without voter approval.

The county and the city have fiscal years that run from October 1 until September 30 the next year.