Tuesday, August 25, 2015

FY 2016 Budget Information

The City Council will hold the first of two readings of the budget tonight at 6 pm, August 25, 2015.  Be there or watch the video if you want to know how they are spending your money!

The Council is scheduled to approve council member Ty Gipson as the city's representative to Lone Star Rail(LSR). We need a representative so that we know what LSR is planning with respect to asking Georgetown to commit to joining and funding LSR.

The city is poised to approve the following tax rates.

     $0.20716 for maintenance and operations
     $0.22684 for principal and interest on city debt
     $0.43400

This will extract $1,739,911 more dollars out of the city's property taxpayers in 2016 than in 2015.  That is an increase of 8.26%. $857,088 is levied on existing property owners and $882,823 is levied on property added to the tax rolls.

The County Appraiser has certified that the appraised value of property within the city is $5,838,074,672, before the freeze is applied for seniors, disabled, etc.

The average home taxable value for 2015 is $234,785 versus $213,554 for 2014.  This is an increase of $21,231. The average tax bill last year was $927. When the 2015 home value is multiplied by the tax rate, it yields an average property tax bill of $1019 for FY 2016, which is a 9.9% increase year over year.

Recall that the overall city budget increased 23.2% over last year, yet property tax revenues are expected to increase by 9.9%.  One might reasonably ask where the extra money is coming from that the city plans to spend in 2016.  The simple answer is that it coming from an increase in debt, and additional water and electric customers.

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