Years of what was described as “frivolous” spending have finally caught up to Scurry County commissioners.
During Tuesday afternoon’s 2020 budget workshop with all department heads and most elected officials, County Judge Dan Hicks said he was proposing to build a $20.5 million budget on a 44.98 property tax rate — the same rate the 2019 budget was built on. But he and other elected officials agreed they will have to campaign to do that.
The county’s effective tax rate for 2020 — which would bring in the same amount of property tax revenue as 2019 — is 36.06 cents per $100 valuation.
The rollback rate, which if exceeded would allow citizens to call for a rollback election, is even lower, 34.97 cents per $100 valuation.
County Tax Assessor/Collector Jana Young said it is rare that the effective rate is higher than the rollback rate.
“That is how the numbers came out when all of our allocations are put in the system,” she said.
Rising sales tax revenues factored into the effective and rollback rate calculations.
Hicks said county officials also had to include projected sales taxes in the formula to come up with the tax rate.
Commissioner Terry Williams said the county for the past several years has “been robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
“All of our frivolous spending over the years has caught up to us. We are now in a Catch 22 situation,” Williams said. “I have been preaching and preaching, along with our county auditor, about this for a long time.”
Over the past several years Williams said the state was going to pass property tax reform and limit taxing entities’ ability to increase tax rates. Beginning next year, the county will only be able to increase its property taxes by 3.5 percent before an automatic rollback election is held for the public.
County Auditor Angela Sanchez told the court and department heads that there is no money left in reserves. That led Hicks to recommend maintaining the current tax rate, which is more than 10 cents higher than the rollback rate.
“If we have to go back to the rollback rate, we will have to cut $2.5 million from this budget. That is entire departments,” he said. “We would have to cut welfare, the library, senior center, parks and that would get us pretty close to the $2.5 million.”
Hicks said the current 44.98 cent rate would also allow the county to give 3 percent across the board salary increases to all employees and to allocate $1 million to an emergency reserve fund. Sanchez said that money would be put into an interest-bearing account in order to build additional funds.
“FEMA will not come in here right off the bat we if we have an emergency,” Hicks said. “We will have people working, but we have no reserves to pay them.”
Commissioner Craig Merritt said the people of Scurry County have to be convinced it is needed.
“I am going to do what I have to do, even if I don’t like it,” he said, adding that people will not want to see services cut. “We have to have a library. We have to have EMS.”
When Sanchez said that some county services are not required by law and the county could have to file for bankruptcy if a rollback election passes, Merritt quickly shot back.
“We are not going to file for bankruptcy,” he said.
Sanchez said if the county had to rollback its tax rate, it would mean no cost of living adjustment for employees, the county not contributing to paying for health insurance coverage and no budget requests would be fulfilled.
“If we do have to go to the rollback rate, three-quarters of the people will not be sitting here and we (the court) will probably not be sitting here,” Commissioner Shawn McCowen said.
County Treasurer Nelda Colvin said the people “will have to decide what they want” if the county is forced to go back to the rollback rate.
Williams said 7 percent of the county’s registered voters — fewer than 700 voters — would have to sign a petition to call a rollback election this year. County Clerk Melody Appleton said that would be another expense on the county and money it does not have budgeted at this time.
“If they show up and it passes, the people are voting to cut services,” Young said.
Merritt said it would be the responsibility of the county employees to inform the public.
“We have to get out there first to tell the story. We need to tell them what the facts are,” Merritt said.
Hicks said the majority of homeowners will not see a major increase in county property taxes at the current rate. He said most of the increased property taxes will be paid by mineral rights companies and royalty owners.
Scurry County Welfare Department Director Luann Grice recommended a campaign to educate the public of the need for the higher tax rate.
“We need to add some color to this. We need to brag on the people working for the county,” she said.
Hicks filed the proposed budget in the County Clerk’s office Tuesday afternoon for public review and it is available to view on the county’s website.
Tentatively, public hearings on the tax rate and budget are scheduled for Aug. 20 and Aug. 27, Hicks said.