Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 22
22, consider assumptions for Travis County regarding following, a, property tax consideration and b, 2011 parcel rate fees.
>> good morning judge Biscoe and Commissioners.
my name is ten dow and I'm one of your number crunches at the tax office we're here to recommend the court adopt several property tax considerations which we usually address this time every year.
we recommend a, a hundred percent anticipated collection rate noting that this anticipated collect rate is different than the rate you will hear the auditor's office mention in that this anticipated collection rate is used specifically in the effective tax rate calculations and not certifying anything less would have a detrimental effect.
b, the court has the option to reduce the county as debt service using year ends or reserve balances in order to buy down the debt rate.
and we recommend no buy down of the detrate for this year.
c, we recommend we stay at our current optional homestead exemptionment a, the greater of $5,000 or 20 percent, the maximum allowed by law.
every year we usually recommend two more items. This year the court has appointed the local tax policy working group and may take action on the group's recommendation at a later time.
we would like to note the current policy but recommend no action at this time for d, the over65 and disabled homestead exemptions which we currently offer $65,000 for, and b, the historic am exemptions which we offer 100 percent on structure and 50 percent on land for residential and nonprofit agencies and 50 percent on structure and 25 percent on land for all other historic properties.
and those arel an of the property tax considerations.
>> the recommendations in d and e basically are to take no action.
>> correct.
>> at this time.
>> correct.
>> move approval of the recommended action on a, b and .
>> second.
>> discussion?
>> I have a question on what made the parcel rate go down.
>> we haven't covered that.
>> anything on a?
all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote.
b?
>> we have weighed the 2011 parcel rate to fairly allocate the expenses while assessing and collecting for the jurisdictions involved.
we have included our costing model in our backup calculation and the rate ought to be 96 cents.
our current rate is 1.11 cents so the new rate is 15 cents lower than can be aattributed to lower predicted budget considerations for fy 12 which include four percent increase in healthcare and 4.9 percent increase in retirement and also attributed to a major reduction in our delinquent collection personnel costs which were reduced because technical advances at the tax office have allowed the delinquent collections staff time to perform other job duties and we have only included the portion of their time spent on delinquent collections in our calculation.
>> wonderful news.
you don't often hear that.
this is another example of county government recessing its fees in order to accurately reflect the true cost so as to drive the cost to to the user down.
>> do you mind if we take credit for that ms. Dow?
>> we are sure going to, judge.
>> for your generosity.
>> noting the lower rate is about 200,000 less than last year.
>> move approval of the recommended tax rate of 96 cent.
>> second.
>> discussion?
all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote.
we enthusiastically support the recommendation on b.
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