Published: August 16, 2008 08:31 pm      

Budgets, taxes take center stage

Property appraisals are up around Navarro County, part of a continuing effort to keep pace with market values, but what that means is that property bills will likely increase, even though many tax rates are going down or staying the same.

The county doesn’t have a proposed tax rate yet, but commissioners have scheduled budget work sessions all this week beginning at 1:30 p.m. Monday. The current county tax rate is 58 cents for every $100 in appraised value. Because the county gained $200 million in value this year, the county could lower the 2009 rate to 53 cents and still collect the same amount of money as in 2008. The rollback rate is 58 cents, which means it can’t go higher without a rollback election.

“We haven’t proposed anything yet. We aren’t that far along,” said County Judge H.M. Davenport. “We don’t anticipate going over the rollback, but until we really see and hear from all the departments it’s hard to make any definitive statements about the budget at this time.”

Most governments work off a fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

Davenport said he’s been talking to other county judges about challenges they anticipate, and it’s the obvious issues — energy prices, manpower and construction materials.

“There’s no way to guess,” Davenport said. “We don’t know what the market’s going to be as far as oil, so we don’t know what fuel prices are going to be. That’s going to be one of the biggest things to affect us and no one knows what that’s going to be.”

The City of Corsicana is seeking the same rate as last year’s, which is four cents higher than the effective rate, and four cents lower than the rollback rate. The effective rate is how much the county would need to charge in order to collect the same amount as last year.

Corsicana has a budget workshop scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Monday, and the council expects to approve the tax rate Tuesday at its regular meeting. In a preliminary session two weeks ago, the city manager laid out a budget that included a 3 percent pay increase for employees, a 15 percent water rate increase, and no capital purchases.

School districts have different rules for rollback elections because the Texas legislature has set a $1.04 limit on local taxes for daily expenses in all school districts. Anything more than that requires a rolback election. In Navarro County, only Frost Independent School District is taking the risk. Frost ISD’s tax rate election will be Sept. 30. Essentially, voters in that district are being asked to approve a 13-cent boost in the tax rate to $1.29 for each $100 in appraised value.

Unlike most other districts in the county, Frost has been losing enrollment over the last five years, which means state income is going down. In order to meet payroll and other expenses, the district is seeking the higher tax rate. If it can raise $75,000 locally, which is what the 13 cents will create, then the state will reward the district with an additional $225,000 in state aid. If voters reject the measure, the rate will roll back to $1.16.

Other school districts, even those that are growing in enrollments, are tightening belts and letting staff go in order to meet higher expenses and a flat income.

Fuel and electricity are big-ticket items for school districts this year, thanks to increases in diesel, gasoline and rate hikes from electric companies.

“We’ve doubled our budget for deisel and gas over where we were last year,” said Mike Baldree of Blooming Grove ISD. “We’re hoping that will be sufficient.”

In order to afford the changes, the district cut one teaching position, two aides and some maintenance personnel.

“It’s going to be a tight year for everybody,” Baldree predicted.

Food prices that are hitting everyone at the grocery stores are also hitting school districts, and the cooperative estimates prices will increase almost 13 percent this year, according to Larry Baer, Rice ISD finance director.

Blooming Grove is responding by raising cafeteria prices. Other school districts are hoping for corresponding increases from the federal government, which pays for breakfasts and lunches for economically disadvantaged students.

Mildred Independent School District is more than doubling the space in its school buildings, with a new elementary school, field house and fine arts building, which means significantly greater electrical costs, according to Doug Lane, superintendent.

“Most of our increases are in the new building,” Lane said. “The electricity costs we’re projecting on the new buildings are just tremendous. The district added personnel, and of course, fuel costs are a concern.”

Rice ISD is waiting to set its tax rate until the Texas Education Agency releases how much it will give in state aid, if anything. In May, Rice taxpayers approved a bond sale to build a new middle school for the growing district. If the state aid comes through, Rice will go ahead with the project next summer. If it doesn’t receive state aid, it will cancel the project. The proposed tax rate is 24 cents higher than last year to include the debt payments for the $10 million building.

“We’re going ahead as if we were to receive it,” Baer said. “We won’t set our tax rate unless we know.”

If the state doesn’t give Rice a hand, the tax rate should be the same as last year’s.

The City of Rice is proposing a 37-cent tax rate, which is higher than the rollback rate, but because it’s under 50 cents and the city is very small it falls into a relatively new state law that doesn’t force a rollback election. Voters may ask for one, by getting together a petition of 10 percent of the voters and demanding it, but otherwise the rate can be passed by the city council.

“That still puts us a long way from Kerens, Corsicana, Blooming Grove, Frost and everybody else,” said Larry Bailey, mayor. “We’re just trying to have enough money to do the things we need to do in the city. The way asphalt has gone up, it’s hard to just fix the potholes, much less build new roads.”

The only pay increase in Rice was for a minimum-wage employee, whose pay was increased to correspond with the new mandatory minimum wage laws.

Countywide, the values are up this year about $207 million, according to Karen Morris, tax appraiser for the Navarro Central Appraisal District. “Last year, it was about a $260 million increase in the county.”

It’s a bad time for taxes to be going up, said Walter Bloyed, a taxpayer in Frost ISD. Taxpayers are also dealing with higher prices, and they aren’t seeing increases in their pay.

“It’s hard for us to vote for a tax increase when most of us are on fixed salaries,” Bloyed said.

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Janet Jacobs may be reached via e-mail at jacobs@corsicanadailysun.com