After learning the county tax rate was not going up this year, several citizens Friday asked the Orange County Commissioners Court to lower the rate because of the recent flood disaster.
“Right now people need help. You can lower the property tax,” said Daniel Blake Roberts of the McLewis area.
About 25 people attended a public hearing on the proposed tax rate. Another public hearing will be held at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
The Friday hearing was at 6 p.m. Friday and County Judge Brint Carlton said the time gives people who work a chance to comment. He said the Friday evening time had been used for the past three years. However, some people complained that it was scheduled for the evening of high school football games.
The group attending had come upset after reading a legal notice in the bi-weekly local newspaper about a 10.33 percent increase. Carlton said the notice was “legal mumbo jumbo required by the state.” The 10.33 percent increase was in the amount of money the county will collect in taxes. Carlton said the tax rate proposed is 54.4 cents per $100 valuation, the same rate as currently in effect.
However, some properties had increased appraised values and new construction was added during the year. The proposed tax rate will increase county tax revenues by $2.86 million.
A number of complaints were made about the Orange County Appraisal District, which is a separate government entity than the county government. Precinct 4 Commissioner Jody Crump said State Representative Dade Phelan wants to have members of the appraisal district’s board of directors elected by the general public.
Since the appraisal district system was set up nearly 40 years ago, the county taxing entities appoint the members to the appraisal district board.
Julian Gross of Little Cypress was the first to speak and asked if the appraisals will go down because of the recent storm damage.
However, the appraisals for the year are set and tax bills will be mailed in the next few weeks. Carlton said the appraisal district makes appraisals in January.
Gross also asked the commissioners to lower the tax rate. Under state law, the commissioners can set a lower rate than the 54.4 cents per $100 valuation, but cannot make it higher than advertised.
If the county lowered the tax rate by one cent, the owner of a $100,000 house with basic homestead exemption would pay about $8 a year less in taxes. A $150,000 house with homestead exemption would pay about $12 a year less and the owner of a $200,000 house with homestead exemption would pay about $16 less.
Precinct 2 Commissioner Barry Burton said he does not want to lower the rate because the county has a lot of extra expenses because of Tropical Storm Harvey. He said 12 county buildings had flooded and the county could be facing a $60 million clean-up bill.
FEMA is supposed to reimburse the county after the money is spent. Carlton said the county is still trying to recover the federal money for reimbursements after Hurricane Ike nine years ago.
Commissioners Court has made drastic cutbacks in county spending the past three years and has saved $12 million in reserve funds. Carlton said that money is in a so-called “rainy day fund” for emergencies. “I never knew the rainy day would come this soon,” he said.
The reserves will help the county now pay bills without having to borrow money and pay interest, he said.
Commissioners also talked about the recent pay raises they approved for elected county officials. The court voted on the raises during a meeting that was held at the Emergency Operations Center on FM 1142 during the aftermath of the storm.
Carlton said the raises had been discussed in public meetings and advertised in legal notices before the vote. He said county officials had not had a pay raise in nine years.
Carlton, along with Crump and Burton, will be up for election next year. All three said they will not take their pay raises until after the election. The new budget, with the raises, will go into effect October 1.
Precinct 3 Commissioner John Gothia said the salaries needed to be increased to attract good, competent people to run for office.
The commissioners let the citizens talk about a number of subjects, even some that pertain to other entities like the city of Orange.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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