Two Speak Out Against Taxes Before County Adopts The Proposed Rate

Fayette County Commissioners held a public hearing over the proposed property tax rate at a special meeting Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 19. Commissioners must set the tax rate before they can approve next year’s budget. They unanimously voted to approve the tax rate the following day, Aug. 20.

Commissioners proposed keeping the property tax for next year at the current level $0.464 per $100 of taxable property. That rate amounts to a tax increase of about 1.7 percent, however, due to rising property values across the county.

“People might ask, ‘You’ve got more revenue coming in because of the increase in appraisals, so why don’t you lower the tax rate?’” County Judge Joe Weber said at the hearing. “Well, we could go down to the no new revenue tax rate, which is the rate that would bring in the same amount of money as last year. So we could lower it, but I don’t think the court is prepared to do that right now because of the uncertainty we are in due to COVID. We don’t know what the next six months may bring.”

Weber added that the County plans to incur some large one-time expenses in the coming year, including repairs to the slate roofs on the Old Jail and County Courthouse and repair of the clock mechanism in the courthouse tower.

“I’m hesitant to propose lowering the tax rate, but I certainly don’t want to raise it,” Weber said. “We took a pretty big chunk out of the apple last year.”

Last year, Commissioners voted to raise property taxes, mostly in order to build an emergency reserve fund.

Two citizens spoke at the meeting, Jason Fowler and Tom Hudson.

“We’re going through COVID, and we’re all having to sacrifice right now,” Fowler told the Commissioners. “You’ve had people who have lost their jobs, their livelihoods, and a lot of them who were non-essential businesses who were closed for a significant amount of time. Some of them are now just starting to get back on their feet. I feel that raising taxes will lead to worse problems, because some people will not be able to pay their taxes.”

Pct. 4 Commissioner Tom Muras said he and the rest of the Commissioners Court scrutinized this year’s budget in an effort to keep taxes low.

“Everything in the budget is something we really need to make sure this county is safe,” Muras said.

Hudson, who owns La Grange Subway, said the coronavirus crisis makes it even harder for citizens to pay taxes.

“First and foremost, my responsibilities are to my employees and their families, because without them, I wouldn’t be in business,” Hudson said. “I know y’all have a difficult job in figuring out where to spend the money. But you have more money because property appraisals went up.”

Pct. 1 Commissioner Jason McBroom said about half of the increase in appraisals came from new developments around the county, not existing property.

According to Weber, individual tax bills would increase by about $44 annually.

Of the $0.464 per $100 property tax rate, $0.0068 is dedicated to paying the county’s debt, most of which involves construction of the new EMS headquarters in La Grange, and $0.4572 is dedicated towards maintenance and operations.