Magnolia City Council proposes decrease to rollback tax rate

"That works out to about $1.66 per day for police protection and city services," Mendes said. "That's not bad for one of the safest cities in Texas."

At the proposed rollback tax rate of $.4629, the city is expected to receive $753,496.99 in revenue. Last year, the city brought in $779,053 in rollback tax revenue. Despite projecting a decrease of around $25,000 in revenue from the rollback tax, officials said the city will make up for that loss through other revenue streams.

Council member Richard Carby said the city's overall property valuation for 2013 was $142 million and rose to $154 million in 2014. For 2015, the city's overall property valuation is estimated at $162 million.

Carby said because of the increase in property valuations in Magnolia, which will lead to more property tax revenue, the council was able to decrease its rollback tax rate for the 2015 fiscal year without losing any revenue.

Council members Jonny Williams and Anne Sundquist did, however, voice concerns about lowering the proposed rollback tax rate too drastically. Williams and Sundquist said the city might need to raise the rate in the future to regain lost revenue if property values do not continue to rise.

"I pay taxes just like everybody else," Williams said. "Here's what I would hate to see happen—if we lower [the rollback tax rate], it's always harder to come back and get it back. If something happened and we didn't have a reserve and we had to raise it next year or something, that's going to really create [an issue]."

Williams and Sundquist compromised and voted with the other council members to lower the proposed rollback tax rate about one cent by the end of the meeting. A second public hearing for the proposed rollback tax rate is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Aug. 26.

The rollback tax rate is due to the tax assessor-collector's office by Sept. 1 for approval.