County set to lower tax rate slightly for 24-25

Orange County Judge John Gothia is proposing a property tax rate slightly lower than the current rate. During a tax rate hearing Tuesday morning, he suggested a rate of 51 cents per $100 valuation, down from 52.2 cents per $100 valuation.

Commissioners Court is set to vote on the new tax rate along with a general operations budget of $53.56 million during a meeting September 10. The new budget will begin on October 1 and the new property taxes will be due at the end of January.

Even though the tax rate will go down slightly, the tax bill will depend on the property valuations from the Orange County Appraisal District. Many properties had increased values this year.

Homeowners, senior citizens, the disabled, and veterans may receive different breaks on their county taxes.

More than two dozen people interested in the hearing attended the hearing, with Judge Gothia opening the hour-long hearing with a quick basic lesson in county budgeting. He said the advertised proposed tax rate of 54.4 cents per $100 is higher than what will become the actual tax rate. He said the county has done it that way for the eight years he has been on the commissioners court.

The main reason, he said, is because the county must advertise a proposed tax rate before the completion of all property valuations.

State law allows a taxing entity to lower the advertised proposed tax rate, but the entity cannot make it higher. Gothia said he errs on the side of caution to make sure the budget can be met with the estimated tax income.

The budget for 2024-25 will include a pay raise of $1 per hour for all county employees, and a 50-ceent an hour increase for elected officials.

Judge Gothia said the county has to deal with increases in insurance costs and utility rates just as homeowners do. The county has about 60 buildings and must pay for insurance and utilities, plus fleets of vehicles that must be insured, and health insurance for employees to be paid.

The new budget will include reserve savings helping the county to have six months of operating costs saved for an emergency. The state recommends entities keep reserves to pay for six months. He said that a few years ago, the reserves were down to $400,000, which would not pay for a week of county operations. Th e goal is for $26 million in reserves.

Disasters are a big reason for keeping savings, he said. In the past 19 years, the county has been hit by several tropical storms and hurricanes, plus river floods and two tornadoes. Gothia said if a hurricane knocks down trees blocking roads, the county needs to have money to pay for cleaning up.

For instance, the county spent $15 million for the general fund to clean up after Hurricane Laura in 2020. Federal reimbursements for disaster costs are still not complete on that storm.

Even if FEMA reimburses the county for those costs, the payments for reimbursements can take years. He said the county recently received its last payment from Hurricane Ike in 2008.

The county keeping reserves also saves the need for the county to borrow money and pay interest. During the years the county had low reserve savings, commissioners borrowed money to pay for general operations during for October through January in the budget year. The loans, with interest, were the paid back after January when most property taxes are collected.

The proposed budget is online through the County Clerk's section on the Orange County Texas website. The proposed budget was compiled after Commissioners Court conducted several public budget meetings with department heads to hear their needs and requests.

Gothia said no tax dollar is spent without it being made public.

The new budget has only two new positions, one is for a park ranger at Claiborne West Park off Interstate 10. The other is for another inspector in the health and code department.

One increase in costs will be for overtime in the sheriff's office. Gothia said the jail staff has 14 to 15 vacancies. State regulations set guidelines for the number of staff a jail must have for each number of prisons. The Orange County Jail averages 250 inmates a day. Some of the current jail staff must work overtime to meet state rules for staffing.

The sheriff's office, which is the largest county department, is also getting four new radars, a tire changer for the maintenance garage, new computer system used by deputies in the vehicles, 26 new body cameras and new license plate readers.

Gothia said the county is planning to get a water well at Claiborne West Park to provide water to bathrooms and drinking fountains. The county for many years has paid to use a private water company in an adjacent subdivision, but the water quality has gone down. He said he's hoping the Mauriceville Utility District will eventually be able to get water service to the park.

Major equipment for the Road and Bridge Department includes $120,000 for a new patch truck, $175,000 for a new dump truck and $120,000 for a bucket truck or platform truck that could lift workers cutting dead trees and vegetation from the road right-of-way properties.

The county is not legally able to cut dead trees on private property not part of a public right-of-way.