County approves budget, tax cut

The Galveston County Commissioners Court on Wednesday passed what might be regarded as a true tax cut.

The panel lowered the tax rate from 59.875 cents per $100 of assessed value to 58 cents.

For the owner of a $150,000 house with no exemptions, that amounts to $27 in annual savings.

Wednesday’s vote marked the fifth straight year in which the county has lowered the tax rate. But because of rising property values and an expanding tax base, most Galveston County residents could still have paid more in county taxes.

This year’s rate, however, also is less than the “effective rate:” 58.2 cents per $100 of assessed value. That’s the rate the county would have to charge to raise the current year’s revenue based on the coming year’s property values, but without any new properties.

James Wilson, the county budget director, on Wednesday said that state law said that if a local government undercut the effective tax rate, it could claim to have cut taxes.

The county did, however, add taxable properties to the rolls in the past year.

That allowed $5 million in new spending in an overall budget of $170 million.

The new budget adds more than 19 jobs, but some of the cost of the new personnel will be offset by grants and other new sources of revenue, Wilson said.

But the county is faced with some new expenses.

In the past year, daily jail populations have increased from about 950 inmates to more than 1,125. County Judge Jim Yarbrough has said that translates into an added expense of $1.5 million a year.

To reduce populations, the county is adding two employees at a cost of about $150,000 a year to speed inmate processing. It’s hoped the move will reduce prisoner counts, on average, by 200 a day.

The county also is adding four employees to staff a new election division in the county clerk’s office. Those new positions will cost about $300,000 a year.