County Proposes Tax Rate Increase
At its Aug. 13 meeting, the Glasscock County Commissioners Court proposed a tax rate of .343165 per $100 valuation for the next fiscal year. The effective rate (the rate necessary to raise the same monies as in the last year) is .317775. The proposed rate is just below the rollback rate of .343197. (The rollback rate is the highest tax rate which can be set before taxpayers can start tax rollback procedures.)
The proposed rate represents a decrease of approximately two percent from last year’s rate of .362300, but because of higher valuations, County Treasurer Alan Dierschke said he expects the proposed rate to bring in approximately $210,000 more revenue than last year.
Last year’s operating taxes were $2.4 million, from a tax base of $678 million. This year’s tax base is $773 million. The county will have an unencumbered balance in its property tax accounts of $1.5 million at the end of the current fiscal year.
Public hearings on the proposed tax rate will be held on Aug. 28 and Sept. 4 at 9 a.m. in the courtroom of the courthouse. A vote on whether to adopt the proposed rate will be at the regular commissioners court meeting Sept. 10 at 9 a.m.
Court Discusses Higher Tax Rates
There was discussion of raising the tax rate. Commissioner Marck Schafer said everyone knows that the county’s oil is being depleted, and that at some point in time, the oil companies will leave and say, “Thanks for the cheap tax rates.” He guessed that oil companies pay around 90 percent of the taxes in the county and said individual tax rates here are not excessive. He said raising taxes might be a good idea, if county government could actually hold onto the extra money and not spend it.
On the other hand, Schafer said that low rates are one of the reasons the county is attractive to enterprises like wind farm companies, and he said maybe that’s a good reason to keep them low. In addition, he said raising taxes “…might be a hard sell right now, since the county doesn’t really need the money.”
The commissioners seemed to think that Glasscock County’s tax rates are below most other area counties. Commissioner Jimmy Strube said Reagan County’s rates are $1.33 per $100, County Judge Wilburn Bednar said Sterling County’s are at .56.