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Discussion of issues relating to the Fiscal Year 2019-2020 budget calendar and impact of S.B. 2.
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Summary:
The current fiscal year began on October 1, 2019 and ends on September 30, 2020. The 2020-2021 fiscal year will begin on October 1, 2020. The process for developing a proposed FY 2020-2021 Budget will begin on March 23, 2020 with a Staff Budget Kick-off meeting.
Attached is the proposed FY 2020-2021 Budget calendar. This calendar includes budget related workshops, meetings and hearings for the City staff, City Council, the CCPD Board, the FCPEMSD Board and the Deer Park Community Development Corporation Board. The schedule was designed to meet the requirements of applicable State statutes as well as the City Charter. The meeting dates involving the City Council are highlighted in yellow.
Some considerations for the upcoming budget year include:
During their most recent session (86th Legislature, 2019), the Texas Legislature passed S.B. 2, also known as the Texas Property Tax Reform and Transparency Act of 2019. That bill became effective January 1, 2020. The bill does not impact the current fiscal year 2019-20 tax process; however, it will affect fiscal year 2020-2021.
Prior to S.B. 2, a city's rollback rate is the rate necessary to raise precisely eight percent more maintenance and operations tax revenue as the year before after taking into account appraisal fluctuations. The debt service component of the tax rate is then added to the product of the effective maintenance and operations rate and 1.08. In addition to changing the terminology from "rollback rate" "to "voter-approval rate," S.B. 2 lowers the multiplier used in the rate calculation from 8 percent to 3.5 percent. Also, S.B. 2 also requires a city to hold an automatic election (i.e., the bill eliminates the petition requirement) on the November uniform election date if it adopts a rate exceeding the 3.5 percent voter-approval rate.
While S.B. 2 did not impact services this fiscal...
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