Friday, May 17, 2024
The Hood County Commissioners Court set a proposed tax rate for the 2023-2024 fiscal year at .287622 per $100 valuation during its regular meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 8.
The rate, as presented by Hood County Judge Ron Massingill, is a .04 (or 13.14%) decrease from the 2022 tax rate of .331129.
"I worked very closely with the auditor on doing this, and we've had, like I said, numerous workshops, (and) I've taken their advice and counsel in some instances — and in some instances, I haven't — but this gives us enough budget to cover all of the elected salaries,” he said, during the meeting. “With this budget that I propose, it's enough to cover all the expenses, for all of the accounting and leave this county in very good shape.”
Massingill stated that Precinct 4 Commissioner Dave Eagle had also proposed a tax rate at .251700, but County Auditor Becky Kidd said that it would leave the county "$3 million short."
"I just don't want to do that,” Massingill said, on Eagle’s proposed tax rate. “I mean, that may result in laying off employees or not having enough money.”
Eagle responded by saying he needed to set the record straight. He said that the proposed tax rate that he had emailed to Kidd was miscalculated because he used the “wrong numerator.”
“I checked my numbers and put the correct numerator in the equation, and I came up with the ratio of .276800 which is slightly under the ranking of the judge’s proposal,” he said. “The judge has a motion on the table for the tax rate that he's presenting, and it's gonna go where it's gonna go. But, you know, I was trying to explain the reasoning for me to come up with my own rate which I've done every year. I think we're talking about $950,000 less overall with my proposed rate, and I think that we can go back into our budget and find close to a million dollars and tighten up and sharpen the pencils — and that's my opinion.”
Kidd then came up to the podium and addressed Eagle, stating that by dropping a tax rate by one cent, “you lose a million dollars.”
"This county needs this tax rate,” she said. “I'm sorry, I'm gonna sound very adamant about it, but I've worked it and looked at it, and I've brought it down from where we were. I cut already, I added revenue, I looked back at the revenue and was able to increase it. This is a good tax rate for this county, and I hope that you will work with the county and the people that work here and do this tax rate.”
Precinct 1 Commissioner Kevin Andrews said that the commissioners court did something “different” this year, by sitting down and discussing the budgets individually.
“I think that we've established a lot of where we are with this, which I think is the absolutely correct way to do the budgeting,” he said. “You sit down, go forward and figure out where you have to be. Trim everything out and say, ‘This is where we need to be,’ and what actually gets us to this level of revenue.”
Nannette Samuelson, Precinct 2 commissioner, said she agreed with Andrews on the budget, but that most of the discussions have centered around salaries.
"I feel like there are some areas that we can still have an impact on as far as saving taxpayer money,” she said. “There is a tax decrease, but can we do better? Can we go somewhere between what Commissioner Eagle was saying and what the judge has proposed? I think we still have some room. This is a proposed tax rate, and we can still change it as we go through. If we have another workshop or some other session where we find different ways where we can consolidate in certain areas, and reduce redundancy in certain areas, then we can save some dollars in taxpayer money, so I think that we can come somewhere in between.”
Massingill added that more and more people continue to move into Hood County every year and stressed the importance of keeping enough money available in the budget.
"We're cutting this by four points here, which means that it decreases the tax on the average household by $48,” he said. “We've talked about it. It's now time to act on it. This is my proposed budget, but this proposed budget is what Becky Kidd has really worked on and knows it better than anybody else, and you've heard her position on this.”
Samuelson added that she felt there was a “disconnect” and believed there was room to lower the tax rate.
"I had many people who stood there at that microphone, elected and appointed officials, and said, ‘I don't want you to give me an increase. I want that money to go to my employees,’ and I feel very strongly that that's what we should do.”
Massingill made the motion to set the proposed tax rate at .287622.
The motion passed in a 3:2 vote, with Samuelson and Eagle voting against the proposed tax rate.
