Killeen council sets preliminary tax rate at 0.7301 amid debate over service cuts and voter options

The Killeen City Council voted 5–2 on Aug. 4 to set a preliminary property tax rate of 0.7301 and scheduled a public hearing for Sept. 1 at 5 p.m. City Manager Cagle told the council the recommended 0.7301 rate would require roughly $348,000 in cuts to next year’s general fund budget, compared with $3.1 million in reductions if the city kept the current 0.7014 rate.

Why it matters: Cagle warned the rate set tonight is the maximum the council can advertise and that adopting a higher rate could trigger a voter-approval election. He walked the council through three tiers of budget reductions tied to alternative rates and named vacant positions and operating line-items that would be affected.

Council members pressed staff on specifics and options. Council member Bass said she would not vote for any property-tax increase on principle and argued the issue should go to voters: “Let our voters decide,” she said. Council member Brown opposed cuts to senior-center programming and public-safety equipment and proposed a compromise rate that lacked a second. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzales and others emphasized the smaller shortfall at 0.7301 and noted it would avoid eliminating positions.

The council first approved a motion to set a public hearing on the tax rate, then debated multiple competing motions before adopting the recommended preliminary rate. The city manager explained the difference among the accounting benchmarks — current rate (0.7014), no-new-revenue rate (0.7048), budgeted rate (0.7215), and the statutory voter-approval rate (about 0.7302) — and said exceeding the voter-approval rate would automatically trigger an election.

What happens next: With the preliminary rate set, staff will publish the required notices and present budget adjustments tied to the selected rate at upcoming meetings. The council will consider final adoption following the public hearing Sept. 1. If the council had chosen a rate above the voter-approval threshold, that would have required an automatic election in November and carried different budgetary consequences.