Monthly, that's $85. So, what does that pay for? Here's a comprehensive breakdown of what your tax dollars go towards each month.
On a home of the same value, the property owner pays $96.38 to Williamson County, $266.70 to Round Rock ISD, $20.11 to Austin Community College and $4.00 to Upper Brushy Creek Water Control Improvement District each month.
These are the tax rates of each of those entities from the past fiscal year per $100 valuation:
- Upper Brushy Creek WCID: $0.02
- Austin Community College: $0.1005
- Round Rock: $0.425
- Williamson County: $0.4815
- Round Rock ISD: $1.3325
The tax rate from the 2016-17 fiscal year was a raise of 3.07 cents over the effective tax rate. This netted an increase of roughly $74 per year or $6.15 per month from the previous year based on the $240,179 home valuation. The city said the roughly 3 cent increase was used to cover the operating cost of new fire stations and the Multi-Purpose Field Complex in addition to public safety salary increases and staff additions.
In comparison to surrounding areas, Round Rock adopted a lower tax rate, beating out Leander (59.9 cents), Pflugerville (54.05 cents), Hutto (52.04 cents), Cedar Park (47 cents) and Austin (45.89 cent) with a smaller tax rate per $100 valuation. Georgetown set a lower rate at 42.4 cents per $100 valuation.
Outlook for 2017-18 tax rates
In a budget workshop on Thursday, CFO Susan Morgan introduced a proposed tax rate for the 2017-18 fiscal year, which would apply to home valuations made on January 1, 2018.
Morgan projected the effective tax rate, which would provide the same amount of revenue to the city as the prior year, would be 39.89 cents per $100 valuation. This effective tax rate is lower than the current one (set at 42.5 cents) because of the growth the city experienced in the past year.
Morgan proposed setting the tax rate above the effective rate at 43.28 cents, which nets a 3.4 cent increase (or 8 percent increase).
This 3.4 cent increase can be attributed to a number of costs, Morgan said, including 1.2 cents to debt for voter authorized bond projects, including a new fire station, .9 cents to operating costs for voter authorized bond projects and 1.3 cents for operating costs to keep up with growth.
Council also discussed increasing the tax rate even further to 43.312 cents, which is where the state's cap is currently set. If the city chose to increase it above this amount, it would need to receive approval from residents via a petition.
"My recommendation would be to get that as high as we can, while we can," Morgan said. "Everybody I talk to is doing their best to educate their council to do the same."
Morgan made this recommendation based on proposed state legislation that would lower the current cap (set at roughly 8 percent) to limit the amount cities and counties can raise tax rates in future years.
Councilmember Tammy Young observed this lower cap might cause cities to raise tax rates higher to ensure there would still be an ability to take in revenue in future years.
"Basically the state has just assured everybody that property taxes will go up in 2018," Young said.
Morgan's projected effective and rollback rates will become more concrete at the end of July, when the Williamson County Appraisal District certifies the property appraisal values from this past year.
The city will continue discussing its tax rate (set to be paid in 2018) throughout July and August, with two hearings on the tax rate tentatively scheduled for August 24 and 31.
