HUTTO – City Council sent staff back to the drawing board last week after a special-called meeting to discuss the budget did not go as planned.
“Hutto is taking the town back. We can’t afford to ‘grow’ in a way that prices our citizens out of their homes,” Mayor Mike Snyder said.
Snyder and councilmen Dan Thornton and Evan Porterfield came prepared with a statement promising they would not vote to increase property taxes. The mayor read the statement aloud after the public comment section of the meeting but before any discussion of the budget by the city.
“To the Hutto City Council, City Manager (James) Earp, the Hutto taxpayers, we sit here tonight to let you know that three of us plan to vote for no new revenue,” Snyder told the chamber.
The Texas Property Code requires a 60-percent majority vote for a city to raise its tax rate. In Hutto, Five out of the seven council members need to vote in favor of a tax increase for the measure to pass. With three members affirming they would not approve a hike, city staffers will need to rework the budget proposal to reflect a lower rate from taxpayers.
“If we’re going to do no-new-revenue, we need to give the city manager time to develop a no-new-revenue budget,” said Mayor Pro Tem Peter Gordon, suggesting the issue could be readdressed at the next council meeting.
By law, a city’s budget must be in place by Oct. 1.
“If we had a no-newrevenue budget we could work off of so at least he can tell us what he recommends, that would be a lot simpler because right now the budget we have before us that we were planning on going through is the (voter-approvalrate) budget,” Gordon added. “And I think that basing it on a no-newrevenue, he’s probably going to have to rethink a lot of things, re-prioritize a lot of things.”
The budget as originally proposed would have required a tax rate set at the highest level possible without requiring an election, known as the voter-approval tax rate. That would have been 45.96 cents per $100 of property value, up over 3 cents from the Fiscal Year 2024 rate and about 6 cents higher than the NNR rate.
The NNR rate is calculated to bring the city the same amount of property-tax revenue as the year before from properties taxed in both years, meaning in a year when housing values go up, the tax rate would go down so the final bill would be the same, though that is also affected by homestead exemptions.
Properties which are newly added to the tax role do not count toward the NNR calculation, which means the city would see a gain in revenue from taxes paid by new development, officials said.
The proposed rate would have raised $3.64 million more propertytax revenue from existing ratepayers than last year. Taxes from new properties added to the tax roll this year would have been an additional $1.95 million.
The mayor’s move to quash the tax increase apparently surprised some council members and city staff who attended earlier budgetplanning sessions, but it was welcomed by several residents who spoke out at the beginning of the council meeting.
“I’ve seen the budget. The shiny things can wait,” Kara McMurray said. “Prove to us you can be responsible with our money that you have. You have yet to do so. We’re already facing hardships. Don’t be the final straw that will price us out of our homes.”
Not everyone agreed. Cory Denena, a prior political candidate who serves on several advisory boards, said his family was willing to pay more in taxes in the name of progress.
“I believe in fiscal responsibility and striving to keep our taxes at a reasonable rate. I believe there is a time and a place for no-newrevenue. But this is not the time and this is not the place. In my opinion it is just not a responsible governing strategy.”
Hutto’s budget talks are developing a reputation for dramatic turns.
Last year, the council originally voted to approve a budget based on the NNR rate and discussed adding a monthly infrastructure fee in addition to the tax, only to have five members on the dais change their minds and vote for a tax-rate increase. And a last minute, unexpected addition to the budget by the mayor resulted in a $600,000 bump in Hutto Police Department salaries.
“The people want their needs met and with what is left over, a healthy debate on which ‘wants’ we may be able to afford. It is more important for many of our families for them to be able put food on their table than it is to expand Hutto government with more ‘wants,’” Snyder said about his commitment to an NNR-based budget.
The meeting adjourned with no action, but a follow-up discussion is on the Aug. 15 council agenda.
“ “It is more important for many of our families ... to be able put food on their table than it is to expand Hutto government.”
— Mayor Mike Snyder
