By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Del Rio City Council members seem likely to approve a tax rate for the coming year that will be the same as this year’s, over the objections of one councilman, who thinks the rate should be lowered.
Councilman Jim DeReus told the council he believes the city should lower its tax rate by a penny or two per $100 of property value.
DeReus’ comments on the tax rate came during the council’s required first public hearing on the city’s proposed 2022-2023 fiscal year budget during a meeting Aug. 30.
During the meeting, City Finance Director Alberta Barrett went over changes and corrections to the budget.
“This budget is based on maintaining our current tax rate of .7070 per $100 valuation,” Barrett told the council.
At the end of her presentation, Mayor Al Arreola asked if there were any questions.
DeReus questioned Barrett at length about the money the city is setting aside in reserves, noting that it has $6 million above what its own set-aside requirements are. DeReus called the $6 million “the excess over the excess.”
“We have a lot of money, and we’ve talked a lot before about all the transfers from the enterprise funds to the general fund, and yet, according to what you gave us, property values have increased 18 percent, so we’re not lowering the tax rate?” DeReus asked.
“No,” Barrett replied.
“Why not? Why not give a little bit of relief? The county is talking about lowering their tax rate a little bit. The school district is actually talking about raising their rate, so the average person is probably (going to be paying) about 20 percent higher taxes next year,” DeReus said.
“Why can’t we give a little bit of that back by lowering the rate to, I don’t know, 68 or 69 (cents per $100 of valuation), rather than .7070 (cents per $100 of valuation)?” DeReus asked.
“You can,” Barrett said.
City Manager John Sheedy interjected, “I think that’s something that’s the council’s decision. That’s up to you all. We’re recommending – and we understand, there’s nothing we’d rather do than decrease our tax rate – however it’s about $160,000 per 1 cent, so that money that we’re able to continue to put into our capital improvement investments is something that’s funding a lot of projects for us.”
“We think that we can do a lot with that, and certainly, it’s council’s decision, but we have so many projects to do, there’s so many new things coming up, we have a lot of work in front of us, and so we feel that money would certainly benefit and help the city move forward in so many things that we’ve been behind on. There’s just a lot of things we can do with that money,” the city manager added.
DeReus’ council colleagues, too, seemed to favor keeping the tax rate at its current level.
Mayor Pro-tem Steven Webb said, “I just wanted to reiterate we were talking about leaving it (at its current level) or lowering it. My concern is that if we lower it, and then next year have to increase it even more from what it is today, that’s going to be a shock, as opposed to just leaving it where it is. We gained because property values went up. That’s our gain. That’s where we get the revenue to do whatever it is we need to do.
“Currently, and I don’t know if the public’s aware of this, Del Rio actually has one of the lowest tax rates in the state, and we’ve never taken a big leap on taxes, but I think it’s because the property values have gone up enough to offset having to do that. I propose that we just leave it where it is. That way, if next year we do have to make any type of an increase, that way it won’t be that big of an increase,” Webb added.
Councilman Jesus Lopez Jr. said he agreed with both DeReus and Webb and urged city administrators to concentrate on finishing projects in progress.
“I agree with both gentlemen: leave it or lower it. People need a break,” Lopez said.
“I kind of believe myself that the tax rate should stay the same, and I feel the excess money should go to future projects, your streets, your drainage, whatnot. When you have this extra money, you can do extra work. If it’s not in the budget, you’re not going to be able to do it, but if we have monies to do it, then we can. Things come up. Roads get washed out. Things happen, and where are we at? We don’t have the money to do it,” Councilman J.P. Sanchez said.
“It’s harder to pass a tax increase than it is a decrease. Citizens of Del Rio are fed up with the tax increases, and I don’t want to come back at a later point and say, ‘You know what? We didn’t have enough. Now we’re going to have to raise taxes.’ So if we’re used to paying what we’re paying right now, let’s keep it where it’s at and use that excess money wisely and work on our infrastructure. That’s where the money should go. We have been way behind on our infrastructure, for many years, and it’s hard to catch up. Once you fall behind, you can’t catch up overnight, and city crews are only going to be able to attack so much in a year. Now, with this excess money, you might be able to contract out to a subcontractor to take care of some streets,” Sanchez added.
Councilwoman Ernestina “Tina” Martinez said she agreed with Sanchez.
“I think we should leave it where it’s at. That’ll give us the revenue for streets which has always been a main concern and with all this water we got, there’s a lot of potholes, and if we don’t have the money, how are we going to take care of it?” she said.
Arreola, too, said he saw both sides of the issue, but said he believed the tax rate should stay the same and not be raised or lowered.
The council will take a final vote on the tax rate and the city’s budget later this month.
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