County adopts slight tax rate decrease, raises salaries

Following months of work, Young County commissioners officially adopted the fiscal year 2024-2025 budget and tax rate of $0.586353 per $100 valuation, which is slightly lower than last year’s rate.

Commissioners hosted public hearings Monday, Aug. 26 to discuss and hear from local citizens regarding the proposed tax rate and budget. Following the public hearings, commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of adopting the budget and tax rate, with Precinct 3 Commissioner Stacey Rogers voting against.

Young County Judge Win Graham spoke about the process for creating this new budget.

“Every line of this budget has been looked at, scrutinized and debated multiple times during this process. Although this budget does increase taxes, we worked hard to build a budget that would allow us to decrease the county tax rate,” Judge Graham said.

During the hearing, Young County resident Jon Garvey spoke and advocated for the lower tax rate.
“I just simply want to encourage the commissioners of the court to please approve the lower tax rate. People are hurting,” he said.

Young County resident Carol Willis echoed Garvey’s comments regarding higher taxes affecting people.
“People are really hurting. I know y’all are hurting, we’re hurting, everybody’s hurting,” Willis said. “… I know it’s hard to make cuts where we can to survive and see if things get better.”

Following the public hearings, commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of adopting the budget and tax rate, with precinct 3 commissioner Stacey Rogers voting against.

Adopted tax rate

The county adopted an official tax rate of $0.586353 per $100 valuation, a slight decrease from last year’s rate of $0.587674 per $100 valuation.

At the beginning of August, commissioners proposed a tax rate of $0.63 per $100 valuation. The voter approval rate for the county is $0.632547 per $100 valuation. The voter approval rate is the highest tax rate the county may adopt without holding an election to seek voter approval of the rate.

The no-new-revenue rate for the county is $0.553763 per $100 valuation. The no-new-revenue rate is the tax rate for the 2024 year that will raise the same amount of property tax revenue for Young County from the same properties in both the 2023 and 2024 tax years.

The de minimis rate for the county is $0.591658 per $100 valuation. The de minimis rate is the sum of a taxing unit’s no-new-revenue M&O (maintenance and operations) rate; the rate that, when applied to a taxing unit’s current total value, will impose an amount of taxes equal to $500,000; and a taxing unit’s current debt rate.

This tax rate will raise more revenue from property taxes than last year’s budget by an amount of $679,657.84, which is an 8.93% increase from last year. The property tax revenue raised from new property added to the tax roll this year is $262,913.44.

Adopted budget

The county judge said major sources of revenue in this budget were $8.4 million in property taxes, $1.7 million from sales taxes, $1.6 million in grants, supplements and other reimbursements from the state of Texas, $1.2 million from green energy reinvestment zones and tax abatements, approximately $1 million from the reinvestment of Young County reserves and $400,000 from fees for housing out-of-county criminals in the Young County Jail.

In the adopted budget, the total revenues and expenditures for the county are $19,036,614. This includes revenues and expenditures of $13,550,603 in the general fund, $1,220,500 in the insurance fund, $7,500 in the law library fund, $13,300 in the jury fund, $272,830 in the criminal justice fund, $65,000 in the records archive, $1,900 in the district clerk archive and $2,800 in debt service payment.

The county adopted $3,577,961 in the road and bridge general fund. The road and bridge general fund is split among the four precincts in the county, with Precinct 1 budgeted to receive $910,381, Precinct 2 receiving $892,365,Precinct 3 receiving $893,471 and Precinct 4 budgeted for $881,744.

Several factors went into this year’s budget which will have a lowered tax rate but increased property taxes. The county is providing 5% cost-of-living raises for all employees which will add approximately $250,000 to the budget.

In addition to salary increases, the county is creating three new full-time positions. These three positions are one each in the tax assessor-collector’s office, district clerk’s office and county auditor’s office.

The average salary among all full-time county employees is $50,684. This includes elected officials as well as appointed full-time employees.

The county recently agreed to the purchase of a new fire apparatus that the city of Graham uses to respond to emergencies in the county. The cost of the engine was $659,419, which the county has budgeted $155,000 for the first payment.

Young County increased the amount it contributes to Helen Farabee, as well as budgeted $90,000 for ambulance operating expenses for both Graham and Olney. 

The Young County Sheriff’s Office has a budget of $2,118,691, with one of the larger line items listed as $425,000 for the purchase of five new patrol vehicles to replace existing, aging vehicles.

The Young County Sheriff’s Office will benefit from state funds provided by the Senate Bill 22 grant, which gives $350,000 to qualified rural sheriff’s departments who apply. In addition to YCSO, the district attorney and county attorney offices were eligible for SB 22 funding, which came out to $175,000 for each office. 

These three offices applied for and received money this past year and are planning to apply for the grants, or have already done so, again.

YCSO has budgeted to allocate the entire sum of $350,000, which can be used on salary adjustments for qualified positions and equipment or vehicle purchases. 

The district attorney’s office expects to allocate the entire portion of SB22 money while the county attorney will only be able to use a small amount and will have to return the rest to the state comptroller.

“I believe we all want and expect a high level of service from the county,” Judge Graham said. “I believe this budget reflects the balance between a minimum amount of tax increase and the high level of service we all want and deserve.”