Travis County Commssioners Court
September 24, 2002
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Agenda Item Seven
Now, let's go to 7. Which is to adopt orders setting the Travis Countyñr tax rate for fy 2003.>> you have before you an order which is in three parts. The first part is to adopt a maintenance and operations tax rate, that is 3627, .3627. The second part is to adopt a debt service tax rate, which is .033. And the third part is to approve the total --
>> it's .133.
>> what did I say?
>> .033.
>> oh, sorry, yes .1033.
>> thank you.
>> for the record, 1033. Them the third part is the total of those two, which is .4660. That's a statutory requirement for you to adopt an order for both parts of the tax rate.
>> judge, I would move approval of the orders setting the tax rate.
>> second.
>> any more discussion?
>> yes, judge. I would like to maybe just make a few comments of this. Of setting the tax rate at .4660. As christian illustrated the components of that being the debt service and also the maintenance and operation. I would just like to -- to say these -- make a few comments. So the folks out there will clearly understand the -- the intent and purpose of this particular tax rate. It was earlier discussed in the citizens communications today. We heard different testimony from different folks that of course some folks have -- have came in favor of approving this particular tax rate. However we did hear some opposition during the public hearing. Of course there are many components of this particular justification for the increase of this particular proposed tax rate. On the transportation side we heard many comments on the loop 1 north, road improvements, along with sh 45 north and also sh 130 along the drainage and also the -- parks bonds that was always associated with this particular -- with this particular regard. In doing that, of course, looking at the critical transportation mobility -- addressed the concerns of the citizens of Travis County and of course with this association transportation mobility there is also a debt service that's associated with the issuance of these type of bonds. So I think they clearly need to be understood. Also the -- the public safety issues that we have addressed, jail overcrowding, which we have also addressed in this particular budget, also we looked at the increase in our employee health benefits. And of course I think we have looked at other aspects of this budget to look at how can he with reduce jail overcrowding with inclusion of 24-hour magistration that's really at a -- at a pilot project status at this time. -- between the hours of 1:00 a.m. And 7:00 a.m. In the morning, we would just like to test to see how we can really look at this to reduce our jail overcrowding and other staff requirements in this, also involving the pretrial services, cscd, a lot of different components of maximizing the intent of this particular budget, but making sure that we do the right thing. Also included in this was the delay in the compensation, which will -- which probably won't take effect until April 1 of -- of '03. So here we are delaying the compensation to employees here, in Travis County, to ensure that if there is some situations whereby the jail overcrowding aspect doesn't work, we will have something to lean back on. That's the plan b aspect of all of this, of course as I stated earlier none of us I think really want to increase taxes. However there's a lot of things that have fallen that -- at our door as far as Travis County is concerned and we've had to address this thing because a lot of these things are state mandated things which we have to address. Of course with the overwhelming vote by the public in November of 2001 that came before the voters on these particular bonds, they -- they overwhelmingly supported it. Of course we issued them and now we have to pay the debt service for them. So I think all of these all in one package and we basically want to move forward. I really want the public to understand why it is an increase in -- in what we are trying to do to maximize and better utilize and then taking precautionary measures that will really look at us in fiscal year '04 to adjust ourselves accordingly. So again, just wanting to make sure those comments were heard by the public of what we are doing to this morning. Judge, thank you.
>> any other discussion of the motion to discuss the Travis County tax rate in item no. 7. All in favor of the motion? That passes by unanimous vote.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM