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July 27, 2006

Property values up, tax rate could come down

By Marilyn Tennissen

PORT ARTHUR — Appraisal rolls for Jefferson County are in, and it looks like property owners will be due a tax rate decrease.

Wednesday the Jefferson County Appraisal District released the certified appraisals for Jefferson County and the other taxing entities in the district.

“Overall it is good news. The final rolls came up at a 15 percent increase over last year,” Jefferson County Auditor Patrick Swain said. The increase is due primarily to increased industrial values.

The taxable value of property in Jefferson County is $16,540,387,401. At the current tax rate of 42.5 cents per $100 valuation, Swain said the 15 percent increase would generate an additional $9 million in revenue for Jefferson County.

Preliminary budget requests for fiscal year 2006-2007 from county departments came to $93.2 million, up $7.5 million over last year’s budge of $85.7 million. County officials were hoping to give employees a raise, invest in capital for county departments and hire some additional staff.

But the 15 percent increase in revenue is not likely to remain, since it is over the rollback limitation, Swain said.

Under Texas law, a county can generate the same amount of tax revenue from the previous year for operations and an 8 percent cushion. A higher amount would allow residents to petition to “roll back” the tax rate.

“There is still work to be done in the upcoming weeks to bring to the commissioners court a way to get a good rate and take care of budget requests,” Swain said. “Commissioners will have to look at lowering the tax rate, by maybe 2 cents (per $100 valuation) to stay under the rollback rate. That will depend on the tax rate calculation that should be completed some time next week.”

At the lower rate, the county could see an additional $5 million in tax revenue, not the $7.5 million department heads were hoping for.

“There will need to be some cuts, we won’t be able to honor all the department requests,” he said.

Once the tax rate is calculated, the county will come up with revenue scenarios for the budget, and then go back and look at priorities.

Swain said giving a raise to employees and capital replacements may be at the top of the list.

The auditor said the county fund balance is estimated at $17 million, larger than anticipated because of increases in sales tax revenues. The capital improvements may have to be taken out of the fund balance, Swain said.

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