Commissioners approve hike in tax rate Increase to meet budget needs

Submitted by Canton1 on
By David Barber Senior Reporter

In a 4-1 vote, the Van Zandt County Commissioners Court approved an increased tax rate for the 2017 tax year during their regular meeting Sept. 12.

Commissioners approved a tax rate of $.61587 per $100 valuation which exceeds the preceding year’s tax rate ($.585847), the effective tax rate ($.552805) and the rollback tax rate ($.587864).

The effective tax rate is the total tax rate needed to raise the same amount of property tax revenue for VZC from the same properties in both the 2016 and 2017 tax years.

The rollback tax rate is the highest tax rate that VZC may adopt before voters are entitled to petition for an election to limit the rate that may be approved to the rollback rate.

The new tax rate represents an increase of 5.121 percent, according to the commissioners’ court.

All four county commissioners voted in favor of the 2017 tax year rate including Brandon Brown (Pct. 1), Virgil Melton Jr. (Pct. 2), Keith Pearson (Pct. 3) and Tim West (Pct. 4). VZC Judge Don Kirkpatrick voted against the proposal.

In a separate vote Sept. 12, all four county commissioners voted in favor of the fiscal year 2018 budget which begins Oct. 1, 2017 and concludes Sept. 30, 2018.

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