Wrong Assessment Causes County Tax Hike, BOE Increases Millage

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Property Owners will soon get hit with two new tax increases. The first is an aggressive increase in their property tax from the county. According to a recent announcement, the county has tentatively adopted a millage, increasing the rate by 9.19 percent over the rollback rate. Public Hearings for the new rate will be held on Thursday August 23rd at 6:00 P.M., Friday August 24th at 9:00 A.M. and Friday August 31st at 9:30 A.M. in the Commissioner’s Meeting Room at 1266 East Church Street. As posted on the county website, the explanation for the increase is as follows:

This tentative increase will result in a millage rate of 6.90 mills, an increase of .64 mills over last year’s millage rate of 6.26 mills. The purpose of this increase was to reimburse a taxpayer, Young Life of Texas, for taxes that had been wrongfully assessed against its property by the Board of Assessors since 1999. The total figure reimbursed to Young Life was $400,000. This payment will have to be made in January; therefore, the necessity to increase our taxes by that amount. The total figure being claimed by Young Life was in the neighborhood of $2 million; however, the company won a partial judgment in the Court of Appeals earlier this year for a portion of that amount, and, luckily for the other taxpayers of Pickens County, it was willing to reduce the actual cash payment to the amount it won in that partial victory, thus allowing the County to avoid the exposure of a seven figure judgment together with the costs associated with a lengthy trial. The proposed tax increase for a home with a fair market value of $100,000 is approximately $22.44 and the proposed tax increase for non-homestead property with a fair market value of $300,000 is approximately $76.80.

In addition to the county tax hike, property owners will also see an increase from the Board of Education. During last week’s meeting, the board voted to increase the rollback rate tentatively to 16.10, which Superintendent Ben Desper said was not the full rollback rate.

Additionally, the board decided to freeze the employer portion of health cost at $80.58, meaning the district will no longer pay any health coverage above this amount for single payer coverage. The freeze will go into effect in December. As such, employees will retain the same coverage until December, which Financial Officer Amy Burgess stressed, would give employees ample time to study and enroll in new plans if they so choose.

According to last week’s discussion, without these changes the board’s budget would have a shortfall of approximately $740,000. However, the millage increase creates revenue of $180,208, while the health cost freeze will decrease the district’s expenses by $175,961. This shrinks the deficit to $383,831, which will be transferred from the $4.1 million fund balance to balance the board’s budget.

Although all board members voted for the plan, member Byron Long lamented the millage decision, saying that

“anyway you slice it, it’s a tax increase.”

The board will vote for the budget’s final approval on September 13th at 6:00 P.M., during its regular meeting.

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