Shiner council opts for no new dollars

The city of Shiner will enter its new budget year with precisely the same number of dollars it collects from property taxes as it did the year before, council members decided Monday evening.

It was hardly the simplest of decisions for them, though. One hardly must look far to find some item in the city’s budgetary allotments for the year ahead that isn’t costing them more somehow. 

From fuel in their rides to insurance rates and even the basic nuts and bolts that hold the entire city infrastructure together, everything has increased in price in recent months. 

That very meeting, in fact, began with a presentation by Frankie Bates, representing the city’s garbage company, Texas Disposal Services, in which he informed councilmembers they would likely see as much as a 16% increase in the costs of their services within the next calendar year, as prices particularly for fuel made some serious gouges in the company’s margins over the last year.

He spoke during the public comments section of the meeting, merely to provide warning to the council as they made their budget plans for the year ahead. He wouldn’t likely have firm numbers until later this month, he said. Still, he didn’t want it to be a surprise when they did come.

Although not someone to weigh in on matters as he typically sticks to running a meeting rather than siding on issues one way or another, Mayor Fred Hilscher encouraged fellow councilmen to think long and hard between that act to move the city tax rates back downward.

Everything indeed had increased in price over the last year, he reasoned, plus they would soon be working to retire a debt that would cost much more than their current plan required of them. “And the smaller that number becomes, the harder it will be to raise it back up should the situation ever change should they need to raise taxes someday. 

Besides, Shiner already has some of the cheapest tax rates around, and tax increases are only permitted in minimal percentages before they require voter support, which would be nearly impossible in today’s financial climate.

For those reasons, Hilscher said, he would have preferred the city to hold its same tax rate as it had for the year before, which is 27.33 cents per $100 valuation.

Still, how they voted on the issue of taxes in Shiner has little to do with either dollars or cents, Councilman Greg Murrile pointed out. Rather, he said, what they set as the tax rate for the city was based entirely on perceptions.

Because, sure, the mayor’s suggestion that they hold to their old tax rate is technically not a “tax increase” in the slightest. However, based on the fact everyone saw sharp valuation increases in recent years (with no end in sight, apparently, as several discussions came back to a residential property there within the city that was asking—and on verge of getting, from the sounds of things—more than $1.5 million for in a local real estate transaction).

“That just pushes our property values ever higher,” he said. “When people start paying more out of their pockets, it’s our fault for raising taxes. Even if we’ve done no such thing.”

To him, the real test of if it might be worth the hassle that came with leaving taxes as they were came down to this: how much would it earn. When all they’d realize is about $70,000 more, over an entire year, from the roughly two pennies in tax rate it would retain.

Based solely on the perception factor, he asked, was it really worth it?

It was an argument that struck an obvious chord around the council chambers, and not long after, the council proposed and soundly supported that the city’s no new revenue tax rate of 25.10 cents per $100 valuation be the one put forth as the city “proposed tax rate” moving forward.

That is not the final step in the process. The city must first hold a public hearing on its budget and proposed tax rate, in which the public can voice their concerns one way or another, before a final vote is adopted on those numbers later. 

For now, at least, that tax rate of 25.10 cents per hundred would be applied to the city’s estimated $256 million in total taxable values locally.

Also during Monday’s meeting, council members scheduled that public hearing meeting for 6 p.m. Monday, Aug. 22.  Watch for other items from Monday’s city council agenda in forthcoming issues later this month.