County approves new tax rate

Caldwell County Commissioners on Monday voted unanimously to approve the county’s tax rate and operating budget for fiscal year 2019-2020.
The approved tax rate for the upcoming fiscal year will fall at roughly 74 cents per $100 evaluation, equal to the county’s rollback tax rate.
Officials noted the budget will raise more revenue from property taxes over last year by about $1.77 million, or 11.34 percent. Of that amount, almost $471,000 is revenue raised from new properties added to the tax roll.
Officials had originally set the tax rate at about 77 cents per $100 evaluation, but commissioners ultimately opted to reduce the figure to match the county’s rollback rate.
When a taxing entity other than a school district adopts a tax rate that exceeds the rollback tax rate, voters in the taxing area may petition for an election on the tax increase. A successful election would then reduce the entity’s tax rate back to the rollback tax rate.
Caldwell County Judge Hoppy Haden said the decrease was both an effort to avoid a potential rollback election and an effort to offset decreases in revenue next year expected from the passage of Texas Senate Bill 2 — a bill that will go into effect next year designed to limit property tax growth.

For more, see this week’s edition of the Post-Register.