Dripping Springs City Council confirmed Dripping Springs ISD Superintendent Todd Washburn’s appointment to the city’s Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, or TIRZ, board at a Dec. 17 meeting.
The unanimous council vote came one day after the DSISD board of trustees also voted to approve Washburn’s appointment to the board, a move that board Vice President Mary Jane Hetrick called “perfunctory.” Washburn succeeds former interim Superintendent Nola Wellman in his new board position.
The TIRZ board serves to review and enforce the projects of Dripping Springs’ TIRZ—an economic development tactic used in growing Texas cities in which key development zones are assigned a base tax value, with 50% of tax value that exceeds that base amount in subsequent years to be reinvested in the zone’s infrastructure.
Dripping Springs has two TIRZ zones. The first covers the downtown area of Dripping Springs, including City Hall, the administration building for DSISD, Mercer Street and Old Fitzhugh Road. The second covers properties near Bunker Hill and Arrow Ranch.
