By Richard Zowie
It’s now eight years and counting for Fredericksburg Independent School District’s $1.14620 tax rate.
FISD trustees voted 6-0 on Monday at their regular meeting to keep tax rates unchanged.
Trustee Dave Campbell was not in attendance. The meeting was held at FISD’s central office on Friendship Lane.
The trustees also voted 5-1 on a land purchase approval for a new building for the Gillespie Central Appraisal District (GCAD).
Trustee Jerry Durst, who’s on the Gillespie County Fair and Festivals Association board (the granter of the land), abstained from the vote.
No new taxes
Since FISD trustees voted to leave the total tax rate at its current amount of $1.04 (per $100 valuation) for maintenance and operations and $0.10620 for debt service and not adopt a new tax rate, a second hearing won’t be needed.
“We had to wait to adopt until the certified tax values were out and we had the final notice from the Texas Education Agency that we were indeed a Chapter 41/Recapture district for the upcoming year,” said Deborah Ottmers, FISD’s assistant superintendent for business and finance.
Besides FISD’s total tax rate of 1.1462 per $100 valuation, the effective tax rate for this new year will be $1.1526 (a decrease from $1.2001 the previous year) and the rollback rate will be $1.1595 (an increase from $1.1546 the previous year).
According to the Texas State Comptroller, the effective tax rate is the rate calculated that would produce the same amount of taxes if applied to the same properties taxed in both tax years (this year and the prior year).
The rollback rate is the tax rate calculated to be the maximum tax rate (with some exceptions) FISD taxpayers can have.
Ottmers added that the rollback rate is higher than the effective tax rate in most cases, and that if a district wants to adopt a rate higher than the rollback rate, they have to have an election.
“If the new higher rate is not approved, then the entity must roll back the rate to the max rollback rate,” she said.
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