League City City Council on Aug. 23 approved the rate at $0.415526 per $100 of property valuation. The rate is not final until adopted Sept. 27, but due to council’s action Aug. 23, the final rate cannot be higher than $0.415526.
The proposed rate is $0.05 lower than the FY 2021-22 rate of $0.465526.
Under the proposed rate, the owner of a $300,000 home would pay $1,246.59 to the city in property taxes. Under the FY 2021-22 rate, the amount was $1,396.59—a difference of $150.
Both Council Member Larry Millican and Mayor Pat Hallisey voted against setting the rate at $0.415526. Millican said it was premature to set the rate so low and opted for a rate of $0.4208876, which is the no-new-revenue rate, or the rate the city would set to collect the same amount of taxes in FY 2022-23 as it did in FY 2021-22.
Millican wanted to set the rate slightly higher for discussion’s sake; with the rate set at $0.415526, there is no discussion to be had because the rate cannot be increased any higher, he said.
The mayor agreed, saying if the council had approved the no-new-revenue rate, it would be likely the rate would eventually get to $0.415526 but that he still wanted it set slightly higher for discussion’s sake.
Council Member Nick Long said he favored the $0.415526 rate. It funds all the things happening in the city, including raises for city employees, a record amount of capital improvement projects and more, he said.
Resident Chuck DiFalco thanked the council and staff for including so many capital projects in the budget. The FY 2022-23 budget includes $148 million for capital projects—an increase of $61 million from FY 2021-22.
“That’s big jump. It’s going up bigly, and this is necessary,” he said. “We need better drainage. We need better traffic flow. With our population growing, we’re going to need all those, from beginning to end.”
Council Member Hank Dugie agreed with Long.
“I’m confident with the budgeting process that we’ve gone through,” he said of the work that led to the $0.415526 rate.
Dugie said the only reason League City is fortunate enough to discuss how low to set its tax rate is because of new growth. For FY 2022-23, League City has $12.07 billion worth of taxable value, which is a 13% increase from FY 2021-22, said Angie Steelman, the city's budget and project management director.
In total, the FY 2022-23 budget is proposed at $318.64 million, which due to budget workshops is about $650,000 less than originally proposed.
