Officials discuss using voter-approved tax rate, budget posting and annexation tied to courthouse project
July 31, 2025 | Freestone County, Texas
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Speaker 1, a staff member, said the meeting needed to propose a rate tied to an annexation required “either for the courthouse or for that project,” and referenced an amount of $1,000,007.60: “So if you take that $1,000,007.60 … we're gonna do that today. Well, wait.”
The participants discussed using the voter-approval rate as the county's proposed tax rate, with Speaker 1 explaining that the voter-approved rate can be lowered later but not raised above the proposed figure: “Generally, what we do is we take the voter approval rate and we say that is our proposed rate because you can always go back from that, but you can't go above.”
Speaker 1 said the formal tax rate is tied to the budget vote: “We don't vote on the rate until we vote on the budget. Right. We vote on the budget. Just gotta be posted.” The same speaker said the county must publish salaries in the newspaper and that the filing/posting process could be completed the next day: “We can post it. We can file this tomorrow.”
Speakers also discussed timing constraints for receiving official rate information. Speaker 1 noted that the county sometimes does not receive the certified rate until late in the week: “we don't give our rate until you don't get it until Friday, right, sometime. When it's like Tuesday, we wouldn't get it.” Speaker 2 added that postponing by a week would be acceptable: “That'd be fine.”
On salary changes, Speaker 2 and Speaker 3 cautioned that any additional pay this year should be treated as a supplement for cost-of-living rather than a permanent raise. Speaker 2 said pay scales remain “very out of whack” across positions and described prior incremental improvements: “We made some progress last year getting people from 26 to up to 30.” Speaker 3 emphasized repeating adjustments over multiple years.
The transcript does not record a formal motion or vote during this exchange. Speakers described next steps as filing/posting the proposed rate and budget information, with the formal vote on the budget (and thereby the final tax rate) to occur later.
No dates, ordinance or statute citations, or formal motions were included in the provided transcript excerpt.
The participants discussed using the voter-approval rate as the county's proposed tax rate, with Speaker 1 explaining that the voter-approved rate can be lowered later but not raised above the proposed figure: “Generally, what we do is we take the voter approval rate and we say that is our proposed rate because you can always go back from that, but you can't go above.”
Speaker 1 said the formal tax rate is tied to the budget vote: “We don't vote on the rate until we vote on the budget. Right. We vote on the budget. Just gotta be posted.” The same speaker said the county must publish salaries in the newspaper and that the filing/posting process could be completed the next day: “We can post it. We can file this tomorrow.”
Speakers also discussed timing constraints for receiving official rate information. Speaker 1 noted that the county sometimes does not receive the certified rate until late in the week: “we don't give our rate until you don't get it until Friday, right, sometime. When it's like Tuesday, we wouldn't get it.” Speaker 2 added that postponing by a week would be acceptable: “That'd be fine.”
On salary changes, Speaker 2 and Speaker 3 cautioned that any additional pay this year should be treated as a supplement for cost-of-living rather than a permanent raise. Speaker 2 said pay scales remain “very out of whack” across positions and described prior incremental improvements: “We made some progress last year getting people from 26 to up to 30.” Speaker 3 emphasized repeating adjustments over multiple years.
The transcript does not record a formal motion or vote during this exchange. Speakers described next steps as filing/posting the proposed rate and budget information, with the formal vote on the budget (and thereby the final tax rate) to occur later.
No dates, ordinance or statute citations, or formal motions were included in the provided transcript excerpt.
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