County slashes tax rates for FY 2023
Olney taxpayers will soon get a break on property and school tax rates but may not see much relief in 2023 due to spiraling property appraisals. Last week, Young County Commissioners approved a new fiscal year 2023 budget funded by lower tax rates than last year’s rates.
At .587609 per $100 valuation, the county’s general fund tax rate for fiscal 2023 is 15 percent lower than the previous year. Despite the lower rate, the county expects to collect about $201,000 in new revenue because of higher property valuations and new property coming onto county tax rolls, County Judge John Bullock said at the court’s Aug. 29 meeting.
Judge Bullock noted that the debt tax on the LE/Detention, which paid for the county jail, will be 0.000 on the 2022 tax statements. “With excess bond fund build-up plus other fund balances, there was sufficient funds available to pay the 17-year debt off without imposing a tax for the last payment,” Judge Bullock said.
According to the June 2022 Texas Housing Insight Report by the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University, “home prices are still elevated due to the tremendous housing pressures realized after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“The property tax values that the state laid on us were way above what I was expecting to see this year,” Precinct 1 Commissioner Stacy Creswell said. “I knew we were having property[valuation] increases coming but I didn’t expect that much. At the 15 percent, we still … got an increase [in property tax revenue]. That’s on the state that raised our values. How can we change that? We can’t. It’s out of our control at that point.”
The commissioners approved a $19.2 million budget that includes 10 percent pay raises for county employees to compensate for rising inflation. The budget vote was 4-1, with Precinct 3 Commissioner Stacey Rogers voting ‘no’ to protest pay raises given to chief clerks that were higher than the 10 percent hike granted to other county workers. Those raises were funded by surplus fund balances.
Mr. Rogers said he approved of the budget otherwise. “It’s just about hand picking select positions to have more than a 10-percent across-the-board salary raise,” he said. “I’m happy about the increased revenues [from] the $44 million from the Trinity Hills wind farm that came on our taxable values and happy about the … new wind farm coming up. Those [revenues] could be received this year if they have a completion date before Jan. 1.” He also supported the addition of a full-time district attorney investigator whose salary will be paid by Young and Stephens counties.
Precinct 4 Commissioner Jimmy Wiley said the court had passed “a good solid budget this year.”
“One thing I wish is that we all could agree on it,” Mr. Wiley said. “I’ve always said there’s more in there than just the revenue for what it costs to fund our employees. We’ve got to fund our [maintenance and operations]. We all have something in there we don’t agree with but as a whole, it’s something we’ve got to do. That’s the main thing. I’m just thankful we were able to give an increase to our employees this year.” Precinct 2 Commissioner Matt Pruitt said the budget workshop process this year was more harmonious than in previous years and that the court’s priorities seemed aligned. “I thought we did good,” Mr. Pruitt said. “I was proud of this year - being my last year - compared to previous years when we never agreed. We mostly agreed on everything this year. I see where Stacey’s coming from on that one, and all we had to do was just increase it a few but I think overall we did really well.”
Mr. Pruitt said he was pleased to give taxpayers a 15 percent decrease in property tax rates. “At a time like this with everything we are going through in our world … I think it’s going to help everybody.”