Yet another article in the Dispatch about taxes going up – this time at the COUNTY level.
While reading the article, I spotted something quite interesting. Supposedly the reason for the tax increase is for staffing at the new $18 million dollar Taj Mahal jail complex….which has been the subject of some heated discussions. It’s almost as if nobody thought ahead and realized that the $18 million is just the beginning – this also will increase OPERATING costs annually (the same fact that escapes all the boobs yammering for a civic center).
But that’s not the interesting part. Besides the jail money, county officials “are also looking ahead to a year from now, when a new state law about property taxes will take effect.”
For those of you who don’t know it, Texas recently passed Senate Bill 2 and House Bill 3. This bill will “require many cities, counties and other taxing units to hold an election if they wish to raise 3.5% more property tax revenue than the previous year. Since the 1980s, taxing units have been constrained to 8% annual property tax growth.”
That previous 8% level is known as the “rollback rate” – the maximum percentage a city or county can raise the rate without an election. Going forward, these poor babies will have to make do with only a 3.5% increase every year instead of the old 8%. How will they ever make ends meet???
Anyways, those words “rollback rate” made me recall an interesting snippet from the other recent Dispatch article about Mayor Talbert raising the CITY tax rates this week – they were raised to .42 from .395218 which, according to the Dispatch article, is “just below the rollback cap that applies to Lampasas for the upcoming fiscal year.”
What an amazing coincidence! On August 16th, the Dispatch has an article about the CITY raising taxes right up to the rollback limit…and now on August 20th, the COUNTY is front page news saying “officials are looking ahead to a year from now when a new state law about property taxes will go into effect.”
It’s ALMOST is if, I don’t know, these politicians and government-types are grabbing the absolute maximum amount of cash from the taxpayers before an excellent law takes effect next year limiting their future theft.