Edinburg Council To Drop Tax Rate By 4 Cents
At the Aug. 16th meeting of the Edinburg City Council, the Council reiterated its intentions to reduce the city’s property tax rate from $0.68 to $0.64.
However, questions about the wording on the agenda item stymied the council from taking any action.
When the item was first brought up, Mayor Ramiro Garza Jr. asked whether the wording on the agenda would allow the Council to take action on setting the tax rate.
The item was titled as “Discuss and Consider Setting a Public Hearing on the Proposed Tax Rate for the City of Edinburg for Fiscal Year Beginning October 1, 2022, through September 30, 2023.”
According to Dagoberto Soto Jr., the city’s Director of Finance, the public hearing is required by law to let city residents know what tax rate the city council plans to set for the coming fiscal year.
Mayor Garza questioned whether the wording was sufficient to allow the Council to take action on the tax rate. Other Council members also asked whether they could hold the public hearing that night and then take action on setting the tax rate immediately afterwards.
When asked by the Mayor to provide an opinion on the wording of the item on the agenda, City Attorney Omar Ochoa told the Council members that the wording would only allow them to take action to set the public hearing for a future date.
The budget, including the proposed tax rate, had already been discussed at several budget workshops over the last couple of months.
“I would like to reduce the rate by four cents to 64 cents,” Mayor Garza told the commission and attendees at the meeting. “I’ve visited with the city manager and the finance team, and I think it is something very doable. I think we’ve had all this growth in property tax and sales tax. It appears to me, based on the presentation by the financial advisor, that we are able to meet our debt service obligations and even have debt service capacity. So, I think we should provide this relief to our residents. I appreciate the Council supporting that.”
The discussion then moved to when the Council could hold the public hearing. The next regular City Council meeting is scheduled for Sept. 6th. The Council voted to hold the public hearing at that meeting.
When asked if the Sept. 6th meeting would be too late for the budget process, Finance Director Soto responded, “No, that’s perfect. That’s the timeline we had originally planned. The intention was to announce what the Council wants to propose the tax rate to be so that on Sept 6th, after the public hearing, because we need to publish what tax rate to adopt.”
“I want see the budget on that,” said Council Member Daniel Diaz. “We all agree we need the tax break, but I also want to make sure we’re covering our needs.”
“That’s what the city staff have been doing,” Mayor Gaza added. “In fact, the proposed budget does cover a lot of what the departments have been for. I would not be asking for a reduction if we’re not able to meet our needs. There’s some strategic investments in there. Plus, we have these bonds that have been issued in the last 3 years, that’s why that rate was increased. There was a total of about $70M that was issued, and we still have about $27M of improvements to make based on those bonds. Then with the ARPA money of $13M, I think that’s really going to help us take care of our employees as well.”