The City Council will hold the second and final public hearings on the proposed budget and accompanying property tax rate at 7 p.m. Wednesday. Last week, no one showed up to speak at the first public hearings. Hopefully, ,more will make their voices known this week in a forum where it matters and less on Facebook, a forum where it doesn’t. In anticipation of the realization of that optimistic prediction, here are some numbers to keep in mind for citizens who do decide to make their thoughts known to the decision-makers.
$.5848 per $100 valuation: The current property tax rate and the amount the council has already established as the maximum rate it will impose this year. In other words, any pleas to make the rate higher will be met, publicly, with deaf ears and, privately, with disdain and utter disbelief.
$.5748 per $100 valuation: The tax rate City Manager Scott Sellers has proposed for this year and the rate I’m betting the council will agree to no later than Aug. 31.
$.2395 per $100 valuation: The amount of the overall property tax collected that actually goes to running the city and the only amount that is available to be adjusted. The remaining $.3353 goes to paying off the city’s debt and that amount is untouchable.
$.5444 per $100 valuation: Commonly referred to as the effective tax rate, but what it means is this is the property tax rate the council could set to bring in the same amount of property tax revenues as the city collected this year. For the homeowner it means this is the maximum tax rate that could be set to keep you from having a higher property tax bill next year than you did this year.
$200,000: The amount each penny of the property tax rate provides to the city. The council must pass what, on paper, is a balanced budget. That means if you want to advocate reducing the tax rate, you must also be prepared to recommend exactly what you want to remove from the budget to re-balance it,; i.e., if you want the rate reduced by a half-cent, you must find $100,000 in expenditures you suggest should be removed from the list of proposed expenditures for the next fiscal year.
$5 Stormwater Fee: The monthly amount that will be added to a residential property owner’s water bill to fund a newly created and much needed stormwater utility. It was originally planned for $3 a month, but the council upped it by $2 at its meeting last Wednesday to ensure the utility was funded properly to get the job done. To put this in context, this $5 amount is far less than the monthly fee most homeowners pay for wastewater but just as important, and astronomically less than most commercial property owners will be paying (city stormwater guru Kathy Roecker estimates, for example, Wal-Mart’s monthly stormwater bill will be more than $1,100 a month). There is a misconception that this is strictly a flood-prevention program. It is far more than that; it manages both the quality and the quantity of all water runoff (including that toxic water that flows into the stormwater system when a person washes their car outside their home or decides to change the oil in their motor vehicle themselves and then dumps the old oil into the storm drains) as well as the functionality of all the stormwater drains and channels.
$722,983: The amount the extra $2 is expected to produce for the stormwater utility.
$518,500: The increase in revenue to the city’s General Fund over what was originally forecast, based on the certified property valuations. That amount was increased by $10,000 by the council’s decision last week to eliminate funding for public transportation services, but was decreased by (1) $25,000 to purchase a rescue boat for the fire department; (2) $20,000 to fund a Community Health Support Program; (3) $200,000 for police pay parity; (4) $100,000 for non civil service employees pay parity; (2) $120,000 to pay for two new wastewater maintenance technicians.
$63,500: What’s left of that $518,500 that citizens can draw on for additional expenditures without having to adjust income levels.
.5716 per $100 valuation: What I calculate the property tax rate could set at to eliminate that extra $63,500. However, for a home with a $150,000 valuation, this reduction would only reduce the annual tax bill by $4.76. It's probably worth that to keep that money in reserve.
20.6 percent: The amount of a property owner’s tax bill that goes to the City of Kyle. The rest of it goes to other taxing authorities (i.e., 14.9 percent to Hays County, 3.5 percent to both the Austin Community College District and Hays County ESD #5, and the lion’s share, a whopping 54.3 percent, to the Hays Consolidated Independent School District).
3: The maximum number of minutes allowed for each person to make comments during a public hearing. It's the smart choice to be courteous to others in the chambers and respectful of others wishing to speak by not exceeding the three-minute limit. And remember, anyone who does go over that three minute maximum usually comes across as a blowhard, a demagogue and/or a complete idiot. A helpful tip: Don't ramble. Don't speak off-the-cuff. Plan your remarks ahead of the meeting, even going so far as to prepare a script. Then time it. If it takes longer than three minutes, find places to trim it. If you honestly believe you have so much vital information and it takes longer than three minutes to impart it, then shortly before the three-minute time limit expires, give a copy of your prepared remarks to the city secretary and ask the council to approve a motion to make those remarks a permanent part of the record (i.e., the minutes) of the meeting.
$0.00: The amount of money in the budget allocated for anything having to do with roundabouts. That means any comments about roundabouts during this public hearing are totally irrelevant and should be stopped by the chair as soon as they are started. Don't waste everyone else's time and come across as a fool by bringing up the subject of roundabouts at these public hearings on the budget or the tax rate.
Here is the complete agenda for Wednesday’s council meeting.
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