The Orange City Council made it official. The city has a budget of $36.9 million and a tax rate of 80.5 cents per $100 valuation. The budget includes a 2 percent pay raise for employees.
The council Tuesday had the second and final readings for the 2018-19 budget year, which begins Monday. The votes were unanimous.
The tax rate was complicated because of the loss of property values after Tropical Storm Harvey. The current tax rate is 71.7 cents per $100. The loss of property values made the effective rate 76.9 cents per $100, which is the rate needed to raise the same amount of property tax income.
Even with the 4.64 percent increase in the tax rate, a homeowner with property damage will likely pay less this year. The owner of a house valued at $100,000 with a homestead exemption would have paid about $573 in city taxes this year. If the house’s value decreased 50 percent because of damage, the homeowner, with exemption, would pay about $322, or $252 less.
However, the owner of a $100,000 house with homestead exemption and no damage will pay about $644 in 2019, or about $71 more.
Other business included the council and the city’s Economic Development Board of Directors giving a second extension of a $650,000 economic development grant to the Houseman Companies for developing Eagle Point.
Eagle Point is 250-acres off Interstate 10 at Highway 62 which is ready for commercial development. The economic development grant will be used to build an entrance boulevard if a big box store builds. Houseman Companies has promised to give the city right-of-way land for utilities. That land would equal about 20 acres.
The council also honored three local high school students who participated in the national junior olympics this summer. September 25 was officially decalred as Katelynn Helm Day, Maddison Helm Day, and Dakareon Judge Day. The Helm sisters are students at Orangefield High and Judge goes to West Orange-Stark.
District 1 Councilor Pat Pullen, who serves as mayor pro tem, read the resolutions for Katelynn and Maddison Helm and presented them with the proclamations because he is their uncle. Mayor Larry Spears Jr. gave the presentation for Dakareon.
The council also proclaimed October as Breast and Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month for the Julie Rogers Gift of Life program.
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