County Holds Tax Hike Hearing Tuesday Morning

SAN ANGELO, TX — The Tom Green County Commissioner's Court will host the first of two required public hearings on the proposed FY 2020 property tax rate Tuesday morning.  

State law requires the court to publish the proposed tax rate and hold public hearings on the rate before it is adopted.  "This budget wil raise more total property taxes than last year's budget by $3,133,412 or 8.7%, and of that amount $411,425 is a tax revenue to be raised from new property added to the tax roll this year." is the required notice published by Tom Green County Judge Steve Floyd.

The court has approved an estimated budget of $50,784,794 of which $33,481,562 will be raised through property tax.  

The current property tax rate is 54.50 cents per $100 in property value.  

The proposed tax rate is 55.182 cents per $100 in property value.

According to the proposed budget analysis for FY 2020, there is $7,095,347,709 worth of property in Tom Green County.  

The .55182 rate "exceeds the lower of the effective or rollback tax rate and state law requires that two public hearings be held by the court before adopting the proposed tax rate."

According to the notice, the current tax rate is .5450 per $100; the effective tax rate is .51039 per $100; and the rollback rate is .55182 per $100.  

The court is proposing a tax rate of .55182 which is the same as the rollback rate, but not exceeding it.  If the court had chosen to exceed the rollback rate, citizens could have petitioned to have a rollback election which would have returned the tax rate to the previous year rate of .5450 per $100 if voters approved the rollback. 

The proposed budget includes a ten percent raise for county employees and a 3.5 percent raise for elected officials.  The ten percent raise for county employees would include a five percent raise in September and a five percent raise in January.   

The tax rate notice says property taxes can be calculated this way:  property tax amount = (rate) x (taxable value of property)/ 100.  

The two public hearings on the proposed tax rate are Tuesday, Aug. 13 at 9:30 a.m. following the regular meeting of the court and Thursday, Aug. 22 at 6:30 p.m.

Both public hearings will be held in the Commissioner's Court meeting room on the second floor of the Keyes Building at 113 W.  Beauregard.