Guadalupe County Commissioners approve proposed tax rate, adoption set for later this month

Guadalupe County Commissioners approve proposed tax rate, adoption set for later this month Main Photo

1 Sep 2020


news, Guadalupe County

Seguin, TX, USA / Seguin Today

Cindy Aguirre

 

(Seguin) — Guadalupe County is approaching the final steps in its budget process for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. Commissioners recently approved the proposed tax rate of 38.54 cents per $100 of property valuation. Guadalupe County Judge Kyle Kutscher says the rate before taxpayers does not exceed the No New Revenue Rate, previously known as the effective tax rate or the Voter Approval Rate.

“We have a maintenance operation rate at .3184; lateral road rate at five cents, debt service rate at .017 and the total tax rate at .3854 and the new revenue rate was calculated at .3854 — when we were going through the budget process because of the new tax form, the new calculation and some rounding, it actually came back after we went through our budget workshops at .3855. So technically, we are just under the no new revenue rate at the proposed rate and proposed budget,” said Kutscher.

With the challenges that existed this past year, Kutscher believes the breakdown of funds is still a very conservative approach in ensuring that the county is able to cover its operational budget.

“I first want to take the opportunity to thank all of the departments for really working hard, trying to trim what they could out of their budgets knowing it was going to be a difficult year, trying to look out for the taxpayers’ best interest, knowing how we were going to be affected by COVID – some of these small businesses, the state mandated restrictions and closures but the real reason commissioners that the tax rate is at .3854 even though it is at the no new revenue rate or just under it, it’s above last year’s rate because of the lake appraisal. If we wouldn’t have had the special lake appraisal and lost a $1 million in cash, it basically wiped out our new property which would give us the ability to do some additional things and bring in another million dollars or so. So, we are being very conservative still,” said Kutscher.

With no new additional money coming in as compared to last year, Kutscher believes the county still sits in a positive position financially.

“We are being very conservative still. Again, being at or just under that new revenue rate. I always want to say effective rate. I know this is the first year we are using this but the no new revenue rate, that’s the benchmark. That’s not bringing in any additional money compared to last year. So again, a very conservative budget. That’s how the breakdown is of the funds, maintenance and operation, lateral road, debt service rate and the total rate,” said Kutscher.

Kutscher says the court on Tuesday also approved the setting of salaries, expenses and or other allowances for elected county and precinct officials.

“We, at the same time, are approving the publication of the salaries for elected and precinct officials. This year is a little bit different because we didn’t have a salary increase, a pay increase for county employees or elected officials. The only thing that changed were two newly elected officials that were now eligible for longevity who weren’t eligible when they started. So, we are setting everything, all the salaries and expenses basically at the previous year amount except for those two individuals and we did have the leap year adjustment for the extra eight hours,” said Kutscher.

With the adoption of its tax rate set for next month, the court also approved the filing of its proposed budget with the county clerk. Kutscher says he thinks it’s a good budget and believes it’s a budget that proves and shows the court’s responsibility in serving the public.

“I know we had some discussions during our budget workshops on fire departments and some of those things. I know there are some underlying concerns about some of those issues. We’ve gotten emails from the city wanting an increase, some additional emails from the volunteer fire departments unhappy, wanting additional increases. We all know it’s a challenging time and one that is going to be consistently changing but pass those few things where we had longer discussions trying to find out what is best for the county, we were pretty much limited in our ability to make a lot of changes in the proposed budget because of the financial situation we were in with the lakes, with COVID, the nature of us all being really conservative in our approach wanting to lookout for the best interest of our taxpayers – not knowing how our entire community was going to be affected by COVID. Again, there is no pay increase or cost of living increase for county employees. Unfortunately, we had to reduce the additional base in longevity to employees from $1,000 to $700 to make up for some of the shortfall that we had. We did kind of predetermine already with the creation of a new district court, we had to create that department with a court coordinator and a court reporter and then we talked about fire departments. Really, no other new positions, no large capital expenditures that were laid out in there. We’ve looked out for law enforcement, for transportation and for fire protection and a new EMS contract and that was really the bread and butter of this budget,” said Kutscher.

A copy of the budget again has been filed with the county clerk and is available for public inspection. The meeting for the adoption of the tax rate is scheduled for Sept. 15.