BISD looks to avoid approving consecutive deficit budgets

BISD looks to avoid approving consecutive deficit budgets News Staff Tue, 07/23/2024 - 4:14 pm Interim Breckenridge ISD Prairie Freeman discusses the plans for the 2024-2025 budget and tax rate during the Monday, July 15 BISD board meeting. The district’s goal is to prevent passing another deficit budget this year. Photo/Mike Williams X Mike Williams news@breckenridgeamerican.com As with other taxing entities across the state, budget and tax rate season is underway for Breckenridge ISD. The district held a budget workshop session last week to give an update with a guest speaker to give further insight into what will be in store for the district as it plans its 2024-2025 budget and tax rate. BISD Interim Superintendent Prairie Freeman and Stephens County Chief Appraiser in Training Will Thompson gave the school board an update on what to possibly expect during the BISD Board of Trustees meeting Monday, July 15. Freeman said she is working with a property value estimate from April 30 with the certified total expected later this month.The April 30 estimate was $698,966,443, which is down from the 2023 certified value of $722,850,478. “... The values are trending up. We’ve seen large increases in values in the last five years. Your (tax) levy is flat, the amount of money you can get out of your levy out of the values,” Thompson said. “Your value rates are trending down, mostly because of the state tax bill last year, but your allocation is going up. … The tax bill last year threw us a curve ball.” Last year Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 2 which increased homestead tax exemptions from $40,000 to $100,000.Homeowners over 65 and disabled homeowners saw their homestead exemption rise to $110,000. Freeman said the estimated total tax rate with TRE enrichment pennies is $0.7575 per $100 valuation, the same as last year.Enrichment pennies are any M&O tax over the foundation portion of the district’s Foundation School Program allotment. The maximum compressed tax rate is $0.6192 Under the current and estimated tax rate, the district would see a decrease in M&O tax revenue from $5,411,109 in 2023 to $5,232,727 in 2024. The district would see an estimated state revenue of $10,116,071 in 2024, up from $9,882,391 in 2023. The total estimated M&O and state revenue would also increase to $15,348,798 from $15,293,500. Freeman provided a checklist of items that need to be worked on prior to proposing an adopted budget and tax rate. The list largely depended on an updated finance template from TEA and certified values from the appraisal district.  She added that district staff are still looking at other ways to decrease non-wage expenditures within the budget. Trustees discussed a new compensation plan for district employees, but chose not to adopt a new plan until they could get further clarity on other budget items and a tax rate. The base plan for the 2023-2024 school year was $12,674,656.51. The projected base plan for the upcoming school year is $11,137,457.22. Trustees agreed to preliminarily look at going with the projected base rate and adding 2% with the possibility of additional bonuses later in the school year. “We want to give them all we can, but we don’t want to adopt a deficit budget again,” BISD Trustee Roy Russell said. Thompson’s presentationOne reason property tax rates are going up in Stephens County, Thompson said is that many property values in the county have been too low for several years. Since 2021, the chief appraiser in training has been working to bring values closer to where they should be, which has caused many protests during what Thompson called “protest season.” “When I started in 2021, we were 33% low, if I remember right,” Thompson said. “We’re been chasing that number ever since. …We failed again this year, we were at 11%, I have to be at 5%.” Thompson said after appeals, the appraisal district was able to get closer to 5%, but will still be out of compliance. He added raised values for 2024 mainly came from lake areas. “You trying to make up that ground and it’s an aggressive sales market,” Thompson said. “I had a guy come in last hearing of the day Friday (and tell me his value went up). …He would not (sell it for the appraised value).” Thompson added that part of the reason that rates have been lower than what they should be is because values dropped dramatically in 2019 and were not adjusted as they began to rise again. Another reason values have gone up is the appraisal district has added new ways to assess property values, including the usage of drones for pictometry surveys. The district added just over an estimated $20 million in additional value that was previously not on the tax roll through these surveys, according to Thompson. He said there was a $3.5 million home that was not previously on the tax roll. The district will look to have at least one or two more budget workshops before proposing a budget and tax rate. News