Houston County Proposes to Keep Tax Rate As Is

FY 2019 Proposed Tax Rate Comes in at O.54 

By Will Johnson
Messenger Reporter

HOUSTON COUNTY – The Houston County Commissioners Court met in a very brief meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 20 for the purpose of holding a “… public hearing on proposed FY (fiscal year) 2019 ad valorem tax rate of $0.54 per $100 of value.”

No one spoke in favor of or against the proposed tax rate and the meeting was adjourned at 10:05.

Last year’s tax rate was also $0.54 per $100 of property valuation. This was comprised of $0.47670 in maintenance and operation (M&O) taxes and $0.0633 in interest and sinking (I&S) taxes.

The M&O refers to the amount of money needed by an entity for operations on a day-to-day basis while I&S refers to debt service.

The FY 19 effective rate is $0.534202 which would generate $6,934,626.56 while the proposed tax rate of $0.54 would generate $7,009,865.56 in revenue for the county.

According to Section 26.16 of the Texas Property Tax Code, “The effective tax rate is the rate that would generate the same amount of revenue in the current tax year as was generated by a taxing unit’s adopted tax rate in the preceding tax year from property that is taxable in both the current tax year and the preceding tax year.”

The FY 19 rollback rate is $0.576604 which would generate $7,485,030.83 in revenue for the county.

“The rollback tax rate is the highest tax rate a taxing unit may adopt before requiring voter approval at an election,” according to the tax code.

State law requires that two public hearings be held by a governing body before adopting the proposed tax rate. The next public hearing is scheduled for Sept. 4 and the tax rate will be adopted on Sept. 11.

Will Johnson may be contacted via e-mail at [email protected].