Travis County Commssioners Court
July 15, 2003
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Item 20
20 is to consider assumptions necessary for establishing tax rate, including collection rate, optional homestead exemptions and historical exemptions, and take appropriate action.
>> you may have a number of documents in your backup regarding the questions that were posed by the tax assessor collector's office back in June, June 18th we indicated that the court needed to make a determination about collection rate, homestead exemptions, historical exemptions and debt buy-down. The debt buy-down question on July 1, this matter was before you and you had some questions. The backup you have should be in the form of a letter from christian smith to the court dated Monday. (indiscernible). A second letter from christian smith dated July 14th, sharing information about other jurisdictions, exemptions, and a letter from dusty knight dated July 10th that provides some background. And on over 65 exemptions. You should have an identification by zip code of where every 65 homestead owners live. If you'd like, I can walk you through the various pieces of data you have before you. The question I think on the table, at least if you wish to focus on the over65 daibld exemption is whether or not that should be increased, and if so by how much.
>> I had a -- (indiscernible). One of the questions that was asked was that how can we determine or what can we do to determine if these particular things are legitimate. And the person that called me said that there are folks that are using an example of the 65,000-dollar exemption as far as senior citizens that really don't live in the residence. Someone else -- the property itself is carrying the exemption. So they were a little that we may have false representation as far as senior citizen exemptions and $65,000 on property that they really don't reside and maybe a relative or somebody else is on the property. Is there any way that this can be scrutinized more closely to -- that the exemptions that are warranted to the person that are recipients of the exemption is verified and true to the fact?
>> the appraisal district, you could be over age 65, and if you say that this is my residence, you you could living in a rest home or someplace else as long as your intent that you're going to come back and live in that residence. You don't have to live in the residence to claim it as an over 65 residence. So I don't know what the circumstances are. And the one that you're talking about, but the person could be in a rest home or living somewhere else, but it's still that person that is over 65, they own the home and it is their intent to go back to that home at some point in time, they still qualify under the law for the over 65 exemption.
>> what was explained to me -- and I don't really know. I didn't have any way to investigate if this was the case or not. They had relatives living in the property or something like that. They brought it to my attention, so I said I don't know if that's the case or not.
>> the appraisal district, when I was asking about exemptions over age 65 in particular, the appraisal district this year did go and look at the -- the data that they did have, and people that were -- should be over 90 years old at this point, they sent out new homestead applications for those people, and in the cases where no one replied back, they have dropped the over age 65 because they assumed the person had des ceased and the appraisal district hasn't been told. So they said they dropped approximately 4,000. They're dropping about 4,000 of the over 65 exemption because people had had this exemption for a mighty long time and when they sent out a new application, no one stond sponded to it.
>> I understand that when somebody was deceased and other members of the family had not informed tcad of a changing status. But I do know also that surviving spouses, even if they are under 65, still get to keep that exemption. I think that is allowed.
>> that is correct.
>> as long as they're over the surviving spouse is over 55, I believe, they can stay there. They don't lose the over 65 exemption. That's by law.
>> by law we grant the over 65 exemption?
>> the surviving spouse.
>> i've heard that living in palm beach is better than Austin, Travis County. And I rent out my property in the palm beach and stay there. My renter sends a check in a timely manner, but we get the exemption.
>> you don't get to -- you only get to claim one homestead.
>> but unless my renter or I proactively notify that central appraisal district, the homestead exemption stays with the property.
>> that is my understanding, yes, sir. Because it is your intent that you will come back and live in that property.
>> in that case it's not my intention. My intention is to make as much money as I can in florida. But I guess in a situation like that, why wouldn't we simply notify people on the homestead exemption our understanding is that it's your home. And I know all that that entails. But why don't we apply that same thing to it's not your homestead if you move to florida and you live down there for purposes of taxes, is it?
>> I don't grant exemptions, sir. I collect taxes. I have no idea about the specifics of that. All I know is that art said if it was their intent to come back when there's a rest home if they're every 65. I don't know what we need to get into, but he said if it was their intent to come back, I guess it could have been other family members. I don't know if there was rent, lease or whatever, but he said if it is their intent, they've still got the over age 65 to move back in -- their intent to move back in the residence.
>> you can't be in palm beach having fun and claiming a homestead exemption there and claiming a homestead exemption here. It's one or the other.
>> but you don't really claim it here. It simply continues. The ear place that I never got to was a property owner called me and said a disabled neighbor was a millionaire and was entitled to the 20% homestead plus $65,000. He thought that was unfair. He said people who deserve a helping hand is fine with me, but in that case I'm in worst position financially than my disabled neighbor. I really hadn't thought about it that much. When we grant the $65,000, do we grant it to on age and on status, without regard to financial circumstances?
>> that's correct, sir.
>> the number that take advantage of the over 65 exemption, we're taking -- talking about 45% of the eligible ones not taking advantage of it.
>> that's not correct.
>> what is that percentage? What's the number. That's the question. What's that total number that could be if everybody claimed that was eligible?
>> first off, the data that I gave y'all, the only thing that I had that -- the appraisal district has nothing on people's ages until you tell that you're over 65. They have no idea of how old you are. So what we based it on was the voter roll, which we do have, and people that were born prior to January the first, 1938. So that would make you over 65. The statistics that i've put together that was in the attachment on my letter, which was attachment number 2, showed that there were -- we had 47,000 people that were over age 65 eligible last week. That's how many people we have on the voter roll. It doesn't mean that everybody that's over 65 is registered to vote, but that was the database that I had to work with. Taking those 47,000 people and then putting them into an address, it came up with 31,000 different addresses. Many of these are -- you would have three or four people in one residence, that's obviously a rest home, but they're all registered to vote still. So we have approximately 31,000 over 65 residences that would be considered on the voter roll. We had 33,000 people on the tax roll that were getting the over age 65 exemptions. So therefore if you were make ang analogy, we need to work on the people getting registered to vote because we have more people that are over age 65 getting the homestead than what we do in residences. So I would say --
>> you said 110% of them [overlapping speakers].
>> so obviously we have a lot of people that are on the property tax rolls receiving over 65 exemptions that are not registered to vote. Because we have more numbers there.
>> those two do not necessarily go together.
>> I know, but that's what --
>> but they square with my recollection of the recollection I had at river place when I asked people over age 65 years of old about that additional $65,000.
>> that doesn't mean they're not getting it, judge. Because i've looked up people person by person and people saying I didn't know anything about it and I looked up every single one of them on tcad with their permission and they had it. They didn't realize they had it. They weren't paying attention. I find it hard to believe that anyone in river place doesn't know about the over 65 exemption.
>> it's part of the fact and the research that I did, we each year, through the blessing of the courts, send out a newsletter when we send out the tax bills which tells everybody about getting the local option, getting the over 65 or the disabled, the tax assessor goes out and make many speeches to local homeowners associations and push this. And I think what you will really find is when people talk about an over 65 exemption, they're expecting to be exempt from tax, where they owe nothing. And so the ones that we have looked up is like Commissioner Sonleitner's, they do have the exemption out there, they just expected to be paying nothing. And even though you're giving them the 20% and the 65,000, which means an 81,000-dollar home would be totally exempt, but if it's over that then they're getting billed. It's still like I'm not getting exempted from taxes. I think that's what the problem is.
>> well, if your property is valued at roughly $200,000, and you claim and receive both exemptions and you ought to be taxed at-- you ought to be tax as though your property is valued at 95,000, if that's correct? Are we able to sample over 65-year-olds with property valued at roughly $200,000 and see if they in fact are paying taxes equivalent to the value being 95,000?
>> I believe so.
>> judge, when you look on tcad -- I'm there all the time. It's the single woman's greatest gift in terms of looking people up. They actually show all the jurisdictions and the value and the exemghtss and they -- exemss and they show the full everything. Well, it's true. They show everything. And in terms of dollar amounts. I look up people all the time.
>> you have found in your research -- [ laughter ]
>> I'm nosy. I look everybody up. [ laughter ]
>> there are other ways to get dates. [ laughter ]
>> but there are no better ways to not get dates. Trust me. You also want to know who is listed on tcad in terms of if is there a second person listed on tcad. I jest, but it clearly shows not only where the jurisdictions are, but the amount of exemptions, and you can do go down to the lower piece and it clearly states what exemptions they have. It gives you the deed year. It tells you everything you want to know about a person. [ laughter ]
>> I forgot the question. What was the question again?
>> if you do that analysis, just a sampling, does that show you that virtually all of those entitled to the over 65 additional exemption in fact are receiving it?
>> I don't know. There could be 100,000 people who are over 65 in Travis County. And if I don't know about them, they're not getting that exemption. As I said, we have more people on the tax roll for residences than what we have on the voter roll sorks the voter roll is the only mace I know of that we have where we can find out who is over 65.
>> what we did do when we had our little committee working, we did start with the census numbers, talking about how many folks over 65 are in Travis County. And then we were able to get how many taxpayers are claiming -- I guess we went to the voter rolls next in terms of just to set get a sense of who's out there and then you start putting people to locations, and you find out that there are -- even though there are people over 65, it doesn't mean they own a house. Sometimes there are two or more of these folks in a home. So you start backing all these things out, and quite frankly, it seems like we're doing a darn good job of getting the word out to folks about this exemption because primarily they're going after the exemption because the minute they turn 65 they can claim the frozen status at aisd or whatever school district, which is really where you need to get your tax relief. They freeze your school taxes when you hit 65.
>> but our eal is better than freezing the taxes at age 65, isn't it?
>> well, it depend on when they get frozen. If you were lucky to have your taxes frozen by aisd when their tax rate was substantially less than it is now, that's a good deal. But for us, for Travis County right now, I think most Travis County folks would find that they are better off getting this exemption than to be frozen.
>> but do they freeze the tax rate or the value of the property?
>> they freeze --
>> it's a ceiling on the taxes. The year that you turn 65 and your taxes for the school were a thousand dollars, we go ahead and -- they freeze the amount. We go ahead and calculate it every year.
>> they freeze the value?
>> so if it gets to be the following year your tax is calculated at 800, we would charge you 800 and not the freeze of a thousand. But if the value goes up and the taxes go up to 1200, you would still only pay the ceiling of a thousand dollars. This is if the house stayed the same, it would always be the thousand dollars or less, whichever calculated to be the less.
>> but does aisd do the 20%?
>> no. Theirs is a maximum of $15,000.
>> they have a state mandated number.
>> unless you live 20 or 30 years after the amount is frozen, you're much better off with your 20% plus the $65,000, which is our deal.
>> yes, but you have to get into the curve of the values. I think christian did the numbers. 10 years ago if a house was at, what, eight, and now it's at 160, it's value has risen quickly. If it's value is $80,000, it takes a lot to get to the same place 10 years later.
>> you can look at this in any number of ways. You can look into it by how Travis County compares it its colleague jurisdiction, Travis County is supremely accommodating to a homestead and over 65 because on an average 190,000-dollar home, which is where we are right now, Travis County would provide an exemption totaling $103,000. Acc would provide it at 80,000, the city of Austin would provide it at 50,000 and aisd would provide it at 40. In addition, looking at other urban counties, there is no trend that makes any sense. Harris county has an exemption of $156,000.
>> plus 20%.
>> plus 20%. And that was so high, that's on their website, that's on their appraisal district. I called them up because I didn't believe it. And the answer is yes, that is correct. Someone in a 200,000-dollar home in harris county will pay zero to harris county. Dallas is 69,000. It goes all the way down to collin county at 30,000. So there's no trend, if you will. It's clearly local decision making. So if you look at it simply in relationship to what others are doing, Travis County's terribly accommodating. If you look at it in terms of time, however, when the average value 10 years ago was 79,000 and that over 65 person paid $78 in county taxes, to today where the value is 190,000, that over 65 person pays $404. So that increases considerable. On the other hand, that $404 is less than the average that folks are paying of $707. So you could land on any number of bases with respect for this question as to whether the over 65 exemption is appropriate or not. And have the data to back your position.
>> and I think that's where I was coming from when I first was asking the question of gee, what should we be doing because quite frankly, there was a time in a previous Commissioners court before I got on board that decided that these were good numbers and, quite frankly, they did a great job of being able to minimize the impact on anybody over 65, but over the 10 years the value of that good work back in 1993 has virtually disappeared. Somebody having a 78-dollar bill, that average homestead, they're now paying Travis County $404. And that is substantially more than what happened -- even though those of us with just a homestead, we've seen our bills double to the county. The impact on those 65 and older is substantially more than a doubling of their bills. And that's what I was trying to respond to is gee, we've seen an erosion of the value of the homestead exemption for those 65 and older. But I think christian is correct. As our little committee works, we can land pretty much anywhere on this because of what the other urban counties are doing, what are fellow jdz are doing within Travis County. It kind of it where we'd like to land. But that was what I was responding to originally is that the value of the homestead exemption for over 65 and disabled had eroded tremendously over 10 years. And I was trying to target any amount of tax relief to that group since that was the amount of phone calls I kept getting last year was, we were likely to have fixed incomes and can't respond to these tax increases as opposed to those in the work is force. That being said, it was always my intention if we gave relief to this particular group, it would not be at the expense of every other taxpayer in Travis County. I am not interested in shifting that burden to another group. To me it was always that if we wanted to go this way, I would support it if we basically said we have that much less money to work with. So I would not be supportive of shifting the tax burden so everyone else because everybody else has just as much a stake in this. It can land anywhere.
>> (indiscernible) -- about the deceased persons that property was still showing a continuation of the senior citizens posted that exemption, $65,000 plus 20%. Are those numbers -- have they been reflected in what we're looking at today? I think you made a mention about 4,000 or so that was done lastly by tcad or whoever did that, I don't know. I guess it was tcad that sent that information out to actually get an update on the activity of the status of senior citizens and the homestead exemption plus 20%. And I guess my point is how accurate is that information as far as numbers are concerned?
>> the numbers that -- which was strictly the over 65, came up with 33,000 for that out of the property tax rolls, that was based on what y'all granted and what was paid in and collected and distributed for the 2002 tax year, the one that we've just ended up. And talking -- doing the research for this project and talking to art corey, the chief appraiser, he said for 2003, this coming tax year, that number would probably be down about 4,000 because of what they have done this summer and the contacting of these people that have had the over 65 for 30 years and are they still alive and still there. So the 4,000 drop would be for next year, 2003. So where it would be 33,000 this year, it would be 29,000 next year.
>> it would be what?
>> if we have 33,000 for the 2002 year, it's expected to be 29,000 people for the coming year.
>> okay.
>> is there a motion?
>> i'll throw one out. I would move that we raise the over 65 and disabled exemption from $65,000 by $5,000 to $70,000, and that the intent of my motion is that we would be doing with that much less revenue as opposed to that it be shifted on the effective tax rate to other taxpayers.
>> so what --
>> about $500,000, christian would --
>> I saw it was about $500,000. And so where would we -- where would you think that we might come down on finding that?
>> we would accept -- the way the effective -- let me answer two things. Let me answer your question and then I want to clarify something the Commissioner said. The effective tax rate calculations are such that if the value goes down about 130 million, the tax rate goes up. What we would do is not have that go up. It would be .01 percent below the effective tax rate. That's about a half a million dollars. And we would present you a balanced budget on July 23rd and would take those instructions and in essence balance the budget by pulling different levers that would baifngly -- basically provide you with fewer degrees of freedom than you otherwise would have once you hear what departments will be telling you about the budget that we are going to be recommending.
>> so we are down to .4560?
>> no, actually, Commissioner. The latest calculation of the effective tax rate without this exemption is 4958, .4958. It's dropped just a little.
>> and a tax rate this year is --
>> 466 on.
>> that's my problem right there. 4660.
>> I have heard a lot more clamoring about the tax rate from everybody that is over 65. My thinking has always been that if you have a fixed income, that's a problem. If you have a fixed income at a low amount, that's an even worse problem. 20% plus $65,000 will help low income people a whole lot. $70,000 would help them more, but my guess is we will help a whole lot of people who don't need help. What that number is y'all don't know. I don't either. I would spend my time trying to reduce the .4956 to much lower. And the impact of that would be not only to help those over 65, but it would be to help everybody else, those under 65 also. And that's where I would put my attention. The other thing, and it is not part of the motion, but it's part of this item. On the exemption, I would appoint a committee to work over the next year and try to figure out what that's about. That is having a different impact than I ever thought, but to be honest, I hadn't thought about that for 10 years. It's in place, we have sort of been doing it every year. There are a whole lot of historical sites that are being picked up here that are really benefitting folks that I had no idea were benefitting from it. When you change the utilization of historical sites, that designation in the exemption carries forth with it and I didn't appreciate that until about two or three weeks ago. So that's my thinking on this and why I will vote against it. At the same time, I do commit, though, to try to reduce that .4956 cents. 8.
>> 4958.
>> the effective tax rate is currently 4958.
>> that's without this -- without any of this.
>> without any of it.
>> it's actually higher than we are right now.
>> we will find the money, but -- in the preliminary budget. But when you get the preliminary budget you will have five or six thousand dollars less freedom to do with the things.
>> unless you lower the effective tax rate. And just go ahead and take that money off of the table to begin with.
>> but the revenue won't be there.
>> I understand. [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> we don't have that in there right now. A penny and a half. That ought to be our goal. Any more discussion of the motion? All in favor. Shows Commissioners son light Sonleitner, Gomez in favor. Voting against, Commissioner Davis, Daugherty and yours truly. I move we asked a small committee of interested Travis County people to study historical exemptions over the next year including getting input from those who have been benefitting to report back to Commissioners court six months after the beginning of the fiscal year which ought to be January, February -- April 1.
>> second.
>> how is that? April 1. That will give us enough time basically to try to figure out what it is we need to do so this time next year we will not only have some interest, but we'll have facts regarding the historical exemption. Seconded by Commissioner Sonleitner. Any more discussion?
>> judge, along with that, I would like to let the folks know out there that what we are trying to do, and you know where i've been coming from in this all along. As far as current tax rate of 46.60, that's still my goal. I'm not going to divorce myself from it. But I also would like to be able to vote across the board as far as taxes and I think this is a good move we're doing to ensure that everyone will feel the reduction as far as taxes is concerned. Including those that are receiving the disabled exemption along with the senior citizen exemption. $65,000, and also [inaudible] on homestead. I think that's real significant as far as what the other jurisdictions are not doing toward that end, but there are other folks that are hollering and screaming also about reducing their taxes. And I just think this is one way we can go in that direction and uncovering every stone that we possibly can to ensure that we come up with an equitiable tax rate acrosses the board. Thank you.
>> this is the other thing I'm kind of ready to move on it because i've heard it several times now. And if we've already set the goal of cutting penny and a half off of the 49.59, then that's the goal that I'm going to move forward on. If we do that, then how much more do we have to go in order to get down to.4660. And I think that we need to start putting projects on the table to get it down to 4660.
>> you have to cut about three cents off and it's going to be about $18 million.
>> I think we need to start putting projects on the table to gel this suggestion. I've heard it several times now, and if we're real serious, I think we need to start putting projects on the table. And we probably need to come back -- start coming back with a list. [inaudible].
>> you didn't hear me say three cents. You did hear me say three and a half. I'll stand behind that.
>> [inaudible] 500,000.
>> a couple months.
>> all I'm saying is it's time to make all this start to gel and we need to bring these lists forward.
>> and I'm looking at a way to recapture $17 million. Hopefully we can get that to off set a a whole bunch of this stuff.
>> I need to see the list.
>> that's where I'm coming from.
>> I understand.
>> I think a -- [multiple voices]
>> any more discussion of the motion? Which wisely delays action.
>> we need to actually vote?
>> you have a committee membership in mind?
>> bring it back.
>> three or four people? Somebody from p.b.o.?
>> I think barbara would be a good member.
>> barbara would be good.
>> somebody from the tax office, I think.
>> you want someone from the city since we are following the city's actions.
>> sure.
>> on granting those historical exemptions.
>> let's get a designee from the tax assessor's office. And let's work in collaboration with the city-appointed representative. I don't know that I would put that person on committee, but I think we ought to use that person as a resource.
>> someone outlawed asked and we have not talked to her about it, but I would love to see if amalia rodriguez mendoza would serve on this committee because she's also a member of the Travis County historical commission and has worked on this issue. And I think she would be very good resource. Ask her on t.v. Like this, but I think she would be great.
>> wise enough to appoint somebody. That sounds like a good committee to me. Any more discussion of the motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Anything else on this item?
>> do we not still have to adopt our assumptions since the motion to change the over 65 failed, we still have to give dusty instructions, do we not, about what our assumptions will be?
>> on collection rate, optional homestead exemption, historical exemption.
>> I would move that we would go with the memo that dusty has laid out for us, and that is there would be no changes from previous years related to our anticipated collection rates, the optional homestead exemption for the disabled, general taxpayers, and for the over 65, and the same assumption for historical exemptions and I think we've already voted, though, on the buy-down.
>> you've already voted on the buy-down.
>> in terms of the collection rate, we do have a few words from the auditor's office.
>> yeah, in. [no microphone on]
>> we've been using that as [inaudible] revenue for a couple of reasons. First of all, in looking back over several years budgets, we haven't actually gotten all the way to budget in actual collections since fiscal 1996. We've been very close. Fractions of a percent. But we have not been able to get up to budget using 99% in the budget process. Secondly, we got -- if you recall, we got a letter at the appraisal district last July saying they would no longer include lawsuit of future litigation. That's something else we have to deal w so for these two revenue estimates we've been using 98.5. Our problem is we work the assessed valuation he gives us in July. It never changes for us for budget purposes. If they discover things are dropping off, they can lower the [inaudible] but not for budget purposes. It has to stay at a certain level. We really think we can give you a much better budget figure if we continue to use the 98.5.
>> in terms of what you just said there, blaine, is that consistent with what's been turned in to christian related to what he thinks is the revenue amount that he's basing preliminary budget numbers on?
>> the collection rate the auditor uses is a different issue than the assumption of the collection rate for the purposes of determining the effective tax rate calculation. Dusty can explain that to you. Both have different implications and are not mutually exclusive. They go hand in hand.
>> it's important that you understand when you get it from us, we've stopped using the 99.
>> it's okay. We just have to get instructions to dusty today for the calculation of the effective tax rate and that's what we need to make sure we are clear on.
>> the effective tax rate, one of the [inaudible] and the state and when they sent this want to -- set this want to make sure you are able to collect all you need to collect to pay your debt. So they have the ability to come in and say if you are only going to collect 90% of the moneys, you should be able to set a collection rate that's higher or lower so you could say if it was going to be -- if it's going to be 10 cents, basically what we've calculated, but you are not going to collect everything, you are able to set it at 11 cents and tax everybody at a higher rate so that you will get the amount of money that you need to pay your debt service. Okay? We can set it at anything below 100%. If you set it below 100% and the calculation is based on the collections that come in from July the first till June 30th, including taxes, penalty and interest, prior years and everything else into a number, if it comes up over 100%, which generally on our calculations we've come up to 101, 102%, they let you keep that 1% more that you collected and it's not -- it doesn't harm you for next year's calculations. If you made this calculation and you collect excess collections, we've said we were going to do worse, it came in better, we collect more money, they penalize you. It's like I'm going to take the first 400,000 out of the calculation, you don't get that because you got it last year. If you choose 100% as the collection thing and come in at 105, it's no harm, no fall, we're not going to take that excess moneys and count it against you. That's what the county has chosen to use for anticipated collection rate for debt service for the last 10 or 12 years was 100%. We have come up with 101, 102% every year. It's for setting the effective tax rate's debt service.
>> that would be clarification. 100% for effective tax rate calculation. Is everybody on the same --
>> you want to make sure -- [multiple voices]
>> you are using 98.5 to certify.
>> once they set a rate, we ask you what you think you are going to get.
>> and that is just as important as the effective tax rate calculation. They just don't want somebody on the court to say, wait a second, I thought you were collecting 100% and come in and show it at 98.5. That's why you had this discussion.
>> I second the motion.
>> that motion is seconded by Commissioner Gomez. I believe I understood it. The rate of collection for the effective tax rate --
>> the anticipated collection rate for purposes of the. [multiple voices]
>> homestead exemption continues as it has been, 20%.
>> 20% for all homesteads or $5,000, whichever is greater, and an additional $65,000 for disabled and over 65. And historical is 100% on the structure, 50% on the land for residences or non-profit agencies. [inaudible] for all other historical purposes.
>> that's the motion. Seconded by Commissioner Gomez. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. We need to do a little work on the tax rate. To be consistent with today's discussion. You would have one set of figures stating your preliminary budget bought I doubt we would be able to complete this by then. You are way down the road towards preliminary budget, right?
>> yes.
>> during markup we will basically work towards achieving goals we set today.
>> quick question. Dusty's memo makes reference to setting tax rates and budget forecasting for the northwest Travis County road district number 3. Did our friends on the road district do what they needed to get done representing to this same topic?
>> the -- your friends on the road district meaning the board of directors of the road district.
>> yes.
>> yes. The staff of the road districts is going to be making a presentation of a recommended tax rate and a budget for the road district, which has seen its value drop from 417 million to 370 million.
>> but we don't have the same kind of deadline --
>> the only -- because it's only debt service. In all candor, I believe there's an assumption that it's 100% collection rate.
>> I'm just making sure we haven't left something out.
>> you are going to be seeing on August 5th, I believe, a proposed -- no, you won't, the board of directors of the road district will be seeing a proposed budget, and I believe that budget will be to keep the tax rate the same and to use some of the reserves in order to do so because the value has dropped.
>> and I don't believe there is any homesteads in that particular area, so the --
>> it's all commercial.
>> it's all commercial so it doesn't matter.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you all.
>> thanks you all.
Last Modified: Wednesday, July 16, 2003 11:52 AM