Hays County Commissioners Court approves FY 2020-21 budget and tax rate

The Hays County Commissioners Court unanimously approved a budget and tax rate for the 2020-21 fiscal year during a Sept. 22. meeting.

The budget of $317,941,631 is $66,944,313 less than the FY 2019-20 budget of $384,885,944 and will be supported by a property tax rate of $0.4212 per $100 of property valuation.

The new tax rate will provide a 5.18% increase in revenue of $4,619,577 compared to FY 2019-20 despite a lower rate. This is accomplished through an increase in the appraised value of property within the county.

The approved rate is a 4.18% increase over the no-new-revenue tax rate of $0.4043—or the rate the county could adopt to raise the same amount of revenue as the previous year's budget.

County operation expenditures for the new budget total $147,009,853 and will be covered by $125,864,554 in revenue and $21,145,299 from various funds.

The budget also includes $131,918,800 in construction expenditures provided predominately through bonds, and $39,012,978, or 12.27% of the total budget, will go toward servicing debt.

Hays County's general fund will see a decrease of $2,102,074 in the adopted budget—a decline of 4.4%.

Overall the city will see a drop of $21,145,299 across its various funds and their cumulative value will decrease from $68,364,282 to $47,218,983—a 30.93% reduction.