Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, October 26, 2010,
Item 27
>> 27, receive status report from local tax policy working group.
>> dusty knight with the tax office.
I知 here for leroy nellis, he's the chair.
asked to give you a briefing, a background.
each June -- I知 going to read from a memo and she was requesting we investigate every tool at our disposal for structuring tax relief which recognize the most relief among those least able to pay their taxes.
we went forward with what we established as tax exemptions.
this was kind of accelerated because some of the other taxing jurisdictions decided to change what they had been doing and drop it without giving any citizens input or whatever else.
working group has met numerous times as a committee, the whole committee, bringing people up to date.
county employees, we have outside citizens that are working with us.
coming up to speed on such things as different types of caps.
caps -- you can only get so much.
caps mean you get so much.
the appraisal caps that go through the legislature.
circuit breakers, ability to pay certain type things.
there's four different subcommittees and if any of the people walk in, please come on up.
I知 with the tax exemption subcommittee.
we are looking at the homestead, the local option homestead exemption, the over 65 exemptions.
the disabled exemption.
the historical exemption.
that's received most of the attention.
that's just one out of many things we're looking at as a group.
the historic, the preservation districts that are out there on the table, land banks, various things like that.
we're looking at all these different methods.
we have a group that is educating the taxpayers.
as you remember a couple weeks ago we came to y'all, we had changed the newsletter that goes out with tax bills so it would hopefully more reflect what getting an exemption does to your tax bill and how much money you can save so that people that should be getting their exemptions will say hey, this is something I need to do and be getting their exemptions.
that was something done through educating the taxpayer and the Commissioners court helped with that.
there's a group looking at other ways to make sure we can make sure the taxpayers are getting everything they should currently.
we have a special group that's looking at the -- all those there letter acronyms, the p.i.d.s, the t.i.f.s, all those special things.
special districts and trying to see how we can help people with.
that we have the legislative committee, subcommittee, excuse me, which is deece, which I think walked in, has provided, the group, a whole lot of history on what things have been approached in the legislature numerous times in the past.
what is there today they are working forward to for this next session starting up.
we hope to be putting together now that we've seen a lot of information, gathered a lot, you all have provided a lot of information.
we've got all this information as a group where we can look at these things.
we're trying to put together now getting closer to putting together a policy for y'all to look at and approve, disapprove, change, mofidy, but if you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.
what is that?
everybody has said it's the historical one.
it looked like it started with one thing back in the 70s, it was for the downtown building downtown.
because the property was so valuable to keep people from tearing down an old billing, that's what this started with.
it has now moved to something different and we're following the lead of the city.
so that's where we need to come up and help y'all come up with a policy.
what is it that you want to do with these things.
>> did you receive any --
>> [indiscernible] came down and testified on that and, of course, it was a lot of information that I know a sheriff with several folks including reroy.
I wanted to make sure the committee had the latest on especially the historic exemption which I felt we could have dealt with this year but we didn't.
and looking at that.
but again, I just want to make sure that the necessary input that's coming in from citizens are at your disposal.
>> we've had -- yes.
we're getting the input from y'all via emails and sharing that with the rest of the committee members.
we have had sit owns outside the citizens only group that have spoke and brought data forward that we've shared with the group.
it's been very even lightning to me that there's some different points of view that have caused me to pause why don't we do it that way.
we're trying to put all this together so y'all can make an informed decision.
I think leroy's goal is obviously we're trying to guess deece things for the legislative process but early January is the goal at this point in time.
>> when do we hope to finish that work, on the exemptions especially.
>> before we start the budget process.
anything that you all do -- any action that you take has a reaction because you are going to get into the -- as an example --
>> that's all right.
what's the deadline for the travis central appraisal district to get our position on different exemptions?
>> we're going to shoot for July of 2011.
>> but isn't there like a legal deadline that they have to comply with?
>> I知 going --
>> there is a date.
we can get it later.
my point is we need to make sure we finish our work before that deadline, otherwise we're looking at another year.
so I would try to prioritize the exemptions, especially the historical ones because we took a lot of heat out.
I think we ought to land on it one way or another in order to notify the appraisal district of any changes we want to make.
not to cut you off, but I had to cut you off.
>> we can certainly prioritize that if y'all want to bring them one at a time or as we get something that would be easier on us.
>> I think we ought to hear from you again February or March.
don't you?
>> I believe y'all's intention is coming to us sooner.
>> we're going to try to have something first of January.
>> with specific recommendations.
that early?
>> I知 hoping so.
>> one thing I want to be clear, while the tax team pre-dates the major political push with regard to historic exemptions, I just want to keep historic exemption in perspective because the charge of the tax team is to look at methods that we could deploy to relieve tax burden on those least able to afford the tax burden.
historic exemption is not for that.
, who exemption is for the preservation of historic property.
so it's been pulled in because of its adverse effect on the rest of the taxing population.
while I agree it's a priority, I want to keep it in perspective the main thrust of this tax team is looking at proactive ways to relieve targeted -- targeted burden rather than reactive ways to --
>> I don't know that I agree.
I think the historical exemption ought to be number one.
just because we haven't reviewed or been such a long time and because our policy is cherry inconsistent with reason and reasonableness.
>> I agree.
I just don't want the effort to stop there.
>> we look forward to having you back.
thank you for stimulate ing this conversation.
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.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, October 26, 2010 2:00 PM
