Harris County ESD No. 9—the governing entity that funds the Cy-Fair Volunteer Fire Department—adopted a tax rate of $0.05271 per $100 valuation for the 2018-19 fiscal year at an Oct. 22 meeting, keeping the same rate from FY 2017-18. The rate was adopted with a 4-0 vote with Commissioner Bob Janusaitis absent from the meeting. The new tax rate was adopted after the district initially proposed increasing the rate to $0.06 per $100 valuation in September with an eye on future construction projects. However, because the district did not host the required three public hearings before an Oct. 19 deadline, it lost the ability to increase the tax rate, Commissioner Tommy Balez said. Public hearings were held Oct. 1 and Oct. 8, but plans to hold the third one at the district's regular Oct. 18 meeting fell apart when the meeting had to be canceled. Before hosting each public hearing, the district is required to post notice within 72 hours. Officials posted notice online for the Oct. 18 hearing, but failed to physically post the notice at the administration building, forcing officials to cancel the meeting and reschedule it after the Oct. 19 deadline. Without the third public hearing, the district was required to adopt either the current tax rate or the effective tax rate, whichever was lower, Balez said. "It was a marginal difference, but the 2018 tax rate was the lower of the two," he said. Several factors played into the proposed increase, including district efforts to catch up on the construction of new fire stations. Balez said the district probably needs to construct six or seven more fire stations to catch up to where it needs to be based on growth within the service area. ESD No. 9 officials plan to use about $20 million in fund reserves in FY 2018-19 on a number of projects, including work on up to three fire stations and the development of a new administration building on Telge Road. Commissioners who supported the proposed increase, including Janusaitis, also cited efforts at the state level to limit how much a taxing entity can increase its property tax levy from one year to the next. A failed effort to reform the property tax system in 2017 would have forced taxing entities like ESD No. 9 to get voter approval for any tax rate that increases revenue by more than 4 percent from the previous year. A renewed effort is expected to take place during the 2019 legislative session, which begins in January. "The direction of the state legislature will directly impact the delivery of services statewide if they impose additional restrictions on ESDs," Janusaitis said in an email earlier this month supporting the proposed increase. "It is our role to ensure that funding is available to protect our community. We believe that our analysis and the unpredictable nature of the legislature requires us to preemptively take action to protect the funding stream." However, it was not clear the increased rate would have been adopted even if the option were on the table. Balez said he was leaning toward supporting an effective tax rate—a rate that is that is adjusted in a way that brings in the same amount of property tax revenue as the previous year—but also said he saw both sides of the argument. He said maintaining the same tax rate will not hinder district plans and that he hopes the district can move forward with the needed construction projects without having to raise the rate in the future. "My hope is for us to kind of live within our means based on sales tax and property tax and maybe even lower the tax rate in the future," Balez said. "I personally don’t think we can make a change raising taxes based on a 'what-if.'"