The Brewster County Courthouse in Alpine
This post has been updated.
Organizers opposing a recent tax increase in Brewster County have gathered enough petition signatures to force a special election on the issue, and county commissioners have set the election date for December 6.
On that Saturday, voters will decide whether or not to roll back the increase from a rate of about 39.86 cents back down to a “rollback rate” of 37.27 cents (both rates are per $100 of taxable valuation.)
Early voting on the issue will begin November 19 and run through December 2.
At Tuesday’s meeting, county commissioners set the date after confirming that 931 of the 1,015 petition signatures gathered were from valid registered voters – enough to warrant a special election. (75 signatures came from people not registered to vote and were thus invalid; nine registered voters signed the petition twice.)
County Judge Kathy Killingsworth says while she won’t campaign for or against the effort in her last days in office, she still believes the rollback effort is unnecessary.
“This is not significant for taxpayers,” she says, “we’re talking about two pennies on an extremely low tax rate.”
Killingsworth has defended the increase and the county’s new budget before, telling KRTS the nearly $400,000 in new tax revenue the county expects to raise with the increase would go mainly to road and bridge improvements. She says the extra two cents per $100 will be used to pay for a road materials crusher, and for two new pieces of equipment for the county’s road and bridges department.
Still, opponents fear the money would be used for salary increases for elected officials. The county’s 2015 budget calls for a widespread pay increase for county employees, including commissioners and the county judge.
Killingsworth defended those increases as well, saying on Tuesday that the pay upgrade was “long overdue.” She previously said county salaries are “extremely low.” (You can view a 2014 statewide voluntary survey of county salaries here.)
“I will tell everyone, it’s probably the best budget Brewster County’s ever had,” she says.
Alpine resident and former Sul Ross professor Dale Christophersen helped coordinate the rollback effort. He says that the fact the petition was confirmed sends a message to commissioners.
“I think it certainly could be viewed as a pretty strong rebuke to a commissioners court that went ahead with a tax rate and a budget simply in a very bull-headed way, that failed to take account of the public in general,” he says.
Julianne Braun spearheaded the rollback effort, and says she’s confident it will pass in the election.
“I have talked to people since we stopped collecting signatures who all said ‘boy I wish I’d known about that, I’d have put my signature on there,'” she says.
Braun says she’s happy the election is taking place so soon, and that after talking with the hundreds of people who signed the petition, there’s a general sense of dissatisfaction among the tax increase opponents with how the new revenue might be spent, and a frustration over a lack of transparency from the county.
“There are people who I believe have signed the petition to send a message to the governing body to say ‘hey – talk to us – we don’t want you doing things that don’t represent us,” she says.
