The council votes to ratify the budget and tax rate by raising their hands. Photo by Noah Dawson for The Amarillo Pioneer.
Amarillo City Council officially ratified the first decrease in the city's property tax rate since 2006 during today's meeting.
Deliberations over the rate began last month on August 2nd, where an increase from the current 44.334¢ rate to a 49.086¢ rate was officially proposed. Councilman Cole Stanley was the only vote against the proposed rate, pointing out that it included servicing of debt for the controversial Civic Center project.
While Stanley was also the only member of the council to vote against the Civic Center project earlier this year, citing the fact that voters had already rejected a similar project in 2020, his concerns about including it in the tax rate reached beyond opposition to the project.
As Stanley pointed out, the debt issuance for the project has not yet been approved by the Texas Secretary of State's office.
“We are in a recession. I would prefer not to tax in advance,” said Stanley during the August 2nd meeting. “I would hope council would see the value in that.”
The debt issuance is also being contested via a lawsuit against the city by businessman Alex Fairly and a citizen petition which has been submitted to the city.
Then, on Tuesday, the council voted to move forward with a new proposed rate of 40.628¢. This rate includes funding for everything covered by the 49.086¢ rate with the exception of the Civic Center project. This move surprised the public, as nothing mentioning a 40.628¢ rate had been published by the city ahead of the meeting.
Still, the new 40.628¢ rate passed on its first reading earlier this week. Today, the council held a public hearing on the rate, passed a second reading of ordinances setting the city's budget and tax rate, then voted to officially ratify the budget and rate. With the rate moving from 44.334¢ to 40.628¢, this is the first time since 2006 that the city reduced the property tax rate, moving it then from 28.71¢ to 28.37¢
While members of the public spoke about their support for the lowered rate during the public hearing, they still had concerns about the process.
“That was not ever discussed in front of the public,” said James Schenck, who expressed worries about the possibility that the discussions leading the council to the new rate could have violated the Texas Open Meetings Act.
Schenck also expressed concern about a video released by the mayor after the first reading of the tax rate ordinance. In the video, Mayor Ginger Nelson appeared to credit the rate cut to Mayor Pro-tem Freda Powell, despite the fact that Powell had voted for the proposed 49¢ rate in August. Schenck called the video “disingenuous.”
The vote on the second reading of the ordinance to set the tax rate did hit a minor roadblock when Councilman Cole Stanley pointed out a typo on the amended ordinance given to the council. The amended ordinance was listed as ordinance number 8004. However, the previous vote on the second reading of the budget was actually ordinance number 8004. City staff did not seem worried about the issue, with City Secretary Stephanie Coggins stating that “it will be 8005 in the record.”
The second readings of the budget and tax rate and the ratification of the budget and tax rate each passed 4-0. Councilman Eddy Sauer was not present during today's meeting.