[0:04] All right. I was in follow. We need to work towards the especially the Belk County

[0:08] Commission's for four wins. The honest.

[0:10] The question is rise for the indication of the vice president in the budget.

[0:14] So the question runs.

[0:16] Right.

[0:16] Well, it's a question. I'm going to thank you for the study. Thank you for adding

[0:20] bless us and now you take care of us, Lord. I actually just to forgive us when we fall short.

[0:24] And we would listen to you and seek your direction and everything we do.

[0:27] and it makes us much better,

[0:30] pleasure for us to live in this day.

[0:31] Well, thank you for loving us.

[0:32] It's in Jesus' name, threat.

[0:34] Amen.

[0:36] I would certainly be interested in why

[0:38] I'm the United States of America

[0:41] and consider about it before we just say this.

[0:43] One nation can have a lot of

[0:45] and it is for the liberty of justice, for all.

[0:49] One nation can have a lot of

[0:52] the needs to be in justice,

[0:53] on the state on the agenda.

[0:57] Thank

[1:03] you, Josh.

[1:05] The next item on agenda is presentation of the FY 2027 budget.

[1:11] Oh, my.

[1:14] And if you pull that up on the stream right now,

[1:17] I think that's in your slides.

[1:22] And then following that, we'll have a public hearing

[1:24] on the tax rates for budget.

[1:27] about any budget that we wrote for you to ask.

[1:32] All right, well, commissioners, I was in attendance online.

[1:38] We did a presentation of the budget and our, I think it was our last meeting on the 10th.

[1:44] Yes, August 10th.

[1:45] I think I get those dates.

[1:46] Maybe I'll be counting here shortly.

[1:48] But we did a presentation on August 10th.

[1:50] I think this is the abbreviated version of that presentation.

[1:53] Again, the hearing tonight, the public hearing tonight is on the proposed tax rates, which

[1:59] the county sets, as you'll hear in just a moment, we set two tax rates, both the county

[2:04] what's called the bell county tax rate and then the road of the bridge tax rate for bell county.

[2:09] Those are two separate tax rates for legal purposes and statutory notification purposes under state

[2:15] legislation. Those are combined in our notice process and we'll talk about that. I'll talk about that.

[2:21] All right, next slide, please.

[2:23] Or do I have a comment?

[2:24] So, this is a public hearing on the proposed tax rates

[2:30] as far as said.

[2:30] There is no action that we take tonight.

[2:33] Only a public hearing, the action items will follow

[2:36] on Monday, August 24th.

[2:39] And that's the date the court has set to vote

[2:41] on the both tax rates, as well as the point

[2:45] in terms of the next slide.

[2:50] And I really can't read any of that right now, but I think that's our budget calendar.

[2:58] The calendar is what we begin working on in February of every year.

[3:03] It usually takes us six, seven, eight months as we go through that process to work toward

[3:08] in the August when we adopt our budget.

[3:12] And really, I think, I just put that up there just to show you that the process we take to

[3:17] get to this evening and to get to Monday is not something we did in one meeting or two

[3:24] meetings or three meetings. It's many many many hours and I want to say thanks to the commissioners

[3:30] for the hours that they had put in on working on budget actually once they thanks to our apartment

[3:36] heads, our elected officials who are integral in that process also and certainly to our

[3:40] Ardor's office, Tina and Christine for their work on the budget as we go through.

[3:47] Yes.

[3:49] There is the notice published in the paper that notice is required by state law.

[3:55] And again, I apologize. I had some high surgery yesterday.

[3:59] So I can see there's people out there, but that's about all I can see.

[4:03] So I certainly can't read that.

[4:07] I had a driver. My driver is present. So that's the notice that the public hearing was published. I won't go over that again.

[4:20] It's in the paper. And I think we put these on our website, these presentations on our website after these presentations. So you can look at it for a measure if you didn't see it in the newspaper.

[4:30] It's also known that the notice that's required, again, it identifies what we're

[4:35] statutorily required to post or publish.

[4:41] Here's what the state dictated notice doesn't really tell you though.

[4:45] The state notices or, you know, I plug the legislature for wanting to ensure that your local

[4:51] government process is both the school district and county and the city and all our special

[4:56] districts are as transparent as possible.

[4:58] but I've never really thought that those notices do a whole lot in terms of

[5:01] informing or educating our residents about what's really happening.

[5:06] With your tax rates or with your budget this is very...

[5:08] The counter, as I said, when I started, it sets two separate tax rates.

[5:13] One of them, I call the general fund tax rate. One of them is the road of

[5:16] bridge tax rate. The general fund tax rate is what most of you are probably

[5:21] most familiar with and you can associate with.

[5:24] with that's our maintenance operations fund, primary fund,

[5:28] and it funds things like the Sheriff's Department,

[5:30] which is our largest single expenditure in the budget,

[5:33] is the Sheriff's Office.

[5:35] That's nothing new, that's not new to this budget,

[5:38] it wasn't new to the last budget,

[5:40] and I suspect it's been that way for decade upon decade

[5:43] upon decade.

[5:45] The public safety is a high, high priority,

[5:48] and it's also a high, high mandate by the state

[5:50] that counties provide public safety services

[5:52] in the J.O.'s, the single-business fence in the Sheriff's Department.

[5:57] Our Sheriff's Department.

[5:59] The courts are also in that budget.

[6:01] So the district courts are kind of court law courts, kind of court law courts, kind of

[6:06] J.P. courts.

[6:07] They're all expenses in the general fund budget associated with all the courts.

[6:11] And the criminal justice system and the administration of that, because the state has

[6:16] with that requirement along the county government that we administer those courts,

[6:22] or have those courts in place, and that we fund the line share of costs in the criminal

[6:27] justice system at the level level. And that's the your property taxes primary. Sales tax is

[6:33] involved, those are two big square minutes sources, property taxes, sales tax, and the primary

[6:36] response. The general fund tax rate is currently set at 3128, 3128. It is proposed to increase

[6:50] to 3167. That's the general fund. That's an increase of 0.0039 cents. So very, very small

[7:01] percent increase relative to the overall increase is associated with the county tax rate.

[7:12] More of what the state dictated, notice doesn't want to tell you, the road in this road

[7:15] and bridge district tax. Currently, that tax rate harshly supports road and bridge maintenance

[7:22] operations. Historically, the road and bridge district tax rate has funded about 50% of the

[7:30] cost associated with road and bridge activities across the county. And 50% of it has been subsidized

[7:39] by the general property tax rate or the general fund rates. And that's been that way also

[7:45] for decades and decades and decades. This year for the first time that I'm aware of anyway

[7:52] in the history of the county, the commissioners court asked that that tax rate, the road and

[7:58] bridge factory fully support and fully fund road and bridge operations. Again, that has never

[8:07] occurred because the general fund has always been subsidized. So your current road and bridge,

[8:12] current road district tax will just use the short version. Road district tax is a little less than

[8:18] the two cents per hundred dollars valuation, 0.0199.

[8:23] The proposed increase is to 0.0 or 6.8.

[8:30] This is like the eye chart, 0.0 or 6.8.

[8:35] So that's an increase of about a little more than two cents,

[8:38] which is substantial percentage increase.

[8:43] But in terms of tenions on the tax rate,

[8:45] It's a relatively small amount when you consider and we'll show you a slide shortly about what your school district taxes are

[8:51] What's your city taxes are and what other county taxes are?

[8:55] And you'll see they're all substantially higher than that

[9:00] So

[9:03] What is the other factor there's actually two other factors?

[9:06] I don't think I have a slide on the other factor, but there's two other factors besides your tax rate

[9:10] that causes property taxes in which you pay a property taxes to increase.

[9:17] Those two factors that can cause one of them is certainly the tax rate that the entity sets.

[9:23] So when the county sets a tax rate, or the school district, or the city, or a clear water, or the college,

[9:29] or wherever the tax community is, they set a tax rate.

[9:33] But none of those entities, in Belk County anyway, assess the value of the property.

[9:39] that's done by the appraisal district.

[9:42] The appraisal district is an entity separate

[9:44] and apart from the county.

[9:47] They have their own processes that they go through,

[9:49] they have their own board of directors

[9:51] and that is the one that sets the value of the property.

[9:55] And those two factors are what I call the transparent factors

[10:01] or what you're paying property taxes.

[10:03] So it's not just about the right,

[10:04] it's also about the value of property.

[10:06] when those two are combined, you get the direct rate for what's your property tax.

[10:12] There's a third factor I would submit to you that's involved in how much you paid property

[10:17] taxes and that's what the state requires fund public education and what the state requires

[10:24] to fund public education is not necessarily the most transparent fact because the state will

[10:33] will tell appraisal districts how they need to appraise property in order to meet state

[10:40] funds, state requirements for education.

[10:43] That process is not transparent in my opinion.

[10:46] That process is not transparent at all, but it is a factor of the process of how much money

[10:52] the state needs on public education.

[10:55] So if your property values are increased by the appraisal district, even if the county

[10:59] where to decrease the tax rate, you could see a tax, a property tax in your bill, property

[11:05] tax bill increase, because the values might not be even if the tax rate looked down.

[11:10] So you always have to look at both of those.

[11:13] But what did property values do or what do we think they have done?

[11:18] This chart goes over the past, over the 10 years or so, and if you look at the bars on

[11:25] like graph to see increased significant increases in assessed values over the past 10 years or so.

[11:34] Notwithstanding the current year, FY27, or at least what's projected for an FY27,

[11:41] and that is, I think, again, I don't remember the numbers, but I think it's the smallest increase

[11:47] in assessed values that we've seen on the chart.

[11:52] So, and then there's another box on the very bottom

[11:55] there that I can't read either. So somebody have to read that for me, but there's two factors

[12:00] in assessed values. One of them is the reappraisables. In other words, the existing property is reappraised,

[12:06] and the value goes up. And the other is new value, something that was built brand new, and that's

[12:11] values added to the tax role of this year. Historically, and again, I'll ask the auditor

[12:17] correct me from the state this, but historically over the past several years, reappraisables have been

[12:22] and a pretty significant in terms of the new value

[12:25] and our new assessment, taxable assessment values.

[12:30] And the new value added was not as much or less than

[12:34] the reappraisal value that's added.

[12:37] I think in this current year, in this FY27 process,

[12:42] we actually saw new values increase pretty significantly

[12:46] and reappraisals, reappraisals,

[12:47] actually went down. That is also something that is not ordinary, or at least it has not been

[12:54] ordinary for many, many years. And that's either good or bad, necessarily. It's just what your

[13:00] president district information we have that we get from them this year.

[13:08] Also, what we're going to

[13:09] talk about tax rates. I don't like to talk about those in a vacuum because if you ask anybody in a

[13:17] vacuum if the tax rates are high, I've never gotten an answer other than yes, it doesn't matter.

[13:24] They're always denied. I also think you need to look out of the context of other taxing entities

[13:32] because that's important. You should not look at them in vacuum. The bell county column is

[13:39] highlighted there in the gray box or bluish gray box and then you see city of temple, city of

[13:45] clean, city of Belton, city of Harcar Heights, the school districts, the three largest

[13:50] school districts are on the bottom left, the Temple of Belton and Colleen, and then

[13:54] on the bottom right is the percentage of a tax bill for Belcanon depending upon which

[14:00] school district you live in and which city you live in.

[14:03] And historically, your share of the accounting property tax that you pay, that share of your

[14:13] total tax bill, historically ranges between, I want to say it was 16 and 25 percent, 18 and 23.

[14:23] 18 and 23, between 18 and 23 percent. So the vast majority of any property owners tax bill,

[14:31] if you live in a temple-calling health or highest or out into county, and in English school districts,

[14:37] is going to be another taxing entity. Usually it's two other taxing entities.

[14:43] that have a much higher rate of value as we did.

[14:50] Again, there are asterisks on there.

[14:51] I think the asterisks on there usually

[14:53] are just to indicate what one thing their current rate is

[14:56] and if you know what their proposed rate is.

[14:58] And on some entities.

[15:00] And some may not have yet. But this is the post tax rate for the FY 2021 budget for both the Bell

[15:10] County and the road district rate. I receive current rate at 31.28, the current road district

[15:19] tax at the less than two cents for the total of $33.27 and in the proposed rate for

[15:30] bell counting is $0.3167 and then the road district and it's about $0.4, more than $0.336.35.

[15:39] some changes, the known revenue rate, and the voter approval rate, which is in the bottom

[15:48] right side, and those are all published also.

[15:54] This is the history chart for a property tax rates, and you'll see since 2017, I think

[16:04] I remember the chart show, but just about every year I've been able to drop the tax rate

[16:09] I think there's been a couple of years when this being one of those years, in terms of

[16:16] total tax rate.

[16:17] I think the other year was when we added a significant number of jailers as a result.

[16:23] And we opened up the new each-banded part of the jail and had a higher 50 or 60 different

[16:30] positions there.

[16:31] And that also necessitated some grease right away.

[16:36] So what's the tax rate of back on an average home value?

[16:41] You'll see the 2026 rate and the 2027 approach rate.

[16:45] There are two assumptions that are important on the chart.

[16:48] One of them is that the average taxable home value is to 1978.

[16:55] Your home may be more than that.

[16:56] Your home may be less.

[16:57] But that's the average taxable home value in the county right now.

[17:01] and the appraise of value from 2026 did not change.

[17:06] Those two assumptions, if those two assumptions are made

[17:10] then under the proposed tax rates,

[17:15] there would be an increase of $5.64 a month

[17:18] on your county tax bill.

[17:23] We also look at, and I know I'm all the stuff,

[17:26] we also look at the surrounding county tax rates.

[17:29] I forgot how many of you are on the screen there,

[17:31] but there's 12, 13, 14, 15 different counties around Bell County.

[17:36] We look at what their current tax rates are, and if we know what the proposed tax rates are,

[17:40] we need those on-screen. And, you know, get read all those right now, but I think what it shows,

[17:49] what it historically has shown is that your Bell County tax rate is still one of the lowest

[17:56] tax rates in the region and certainly around around us.

[18:02] And that was the last slide I got.

[18:04] So, um, the missioners, any questions, comments? We'd like to make the floor open the public hearing.

[18:19] This sector is talking about here. We approved is the preliminary tax rate,

[18:23] which can be proved that can no longer go up, but still can come in that.

[18:31] That is correct. This is what we're setting tonight is to propose something to these call it the preliminary tax rate.

[18:39] Once you set this rate, you cannot go above that rate marching toward, but we can go lower than that if you choose.

[18:48] So just know, as you know, I know you know this, but the public, if the court said the budget that we've talked about discussed so far is based on this tax rate.

[19:01] So if we did decide if the court didn't side on money to lower the tax rate, which we could do, there would have to be some corresponding cuts in the budget making.

[19:14] which is something else I say usually in all the budget proceedings as we are not the federal government.

[19:20] We did not print money, which means our budget has to balance.

[19:24] There is no choice to work the balance.

[19:27] So we just have to be aware of that.

[19:31] I don't give commissioners very much aware of that.

[19:33] But if any lowering the factory from what we said today would require also lowering expenditures.

[19:44] Any other questions or comments before I open the public area?

[19:51] All right.

[19:52] All right.

[19:53] At this time, the next item on our agenda is to conduct a public hearing on the proposed FY27 tax rates for the Vell County budget, the County Road district tax.

[20:07] I have one for those that have here for this item.

[20:10] But what we ask you to do is fill out a public participation form.

[20:15] I have one person who has filled this out, but if you fill one of these out, I'll call

[20:19] your name and ask you to come forward, state your name, your general area of residency,

[20:26] and you'll have five minutes to make whatever comments that you would like to make relative

[20:30] to the tax rates, and that will be it.

[20:36] If there's someone else who would like to speak, again, if you would fill out the phones that

[20:40] that we've got this, we can keep all of these,

[20:42] they go in as part of the record, right?

[20:44] At this time, I'll open the public hearing

[20:46] and you're gonna call on the specie guard.

[20:51] I'm sorry, that's fine.

[20:53] That's okay, it's all gonna be good.

[20:55] It's all fun, so thank you, thank you.

[20:58] Welcome.

[20:59] Thank you, thank you, I don't know.

[21:04] You know, I don't know how long students sit down

[21:18] I don't know. I've kind of given up on what I can figure out about what temples do.

[21:23] And so I'm going to come back a little bit. I guess.

[21:26] Okay. So I'm not sure you're trying to decrease.

[21:31] for the road and bridge and set ready for the first time in history.

[21:38] You've been giving about $5 million or so to that out of the general fund,

[21:44] but this tax is only going to raise 3.2.

[21:52] I thought I had a slide.

[21:53] I did not make it in there.

[21:55] It's in the budget presentation.

[21:59] You see if I can remember it.

[22:01] in the state clearly is probably more like $7 million that came out of the general fund

[22:08] to the road bridge and he also can remember each penny is what about $3.8, $3.9 million

[22:20] per penny but it went from two pennies to almost four pennies.

[22:45] So what are you planning on doing with that money that you will no longer be spending on

[22:58] general fund and funding road we were still spending the money and road of

[23:04] rich but we were taking it from general fund and filling it in road of

[23:09] rich and making it whole and so really we're just

[23:12] moving the money word where you spend it we're still spending it over here

[23:16] general fund and moving it over okay and so we took the money out of general

[23:21] fund and put it where we spend it and and it's saying and

[23:26] broke the bridge. That makes sense. So three, so that money which equals approximately 3.2 million.

[23:38] No, it's like like seven and a half million. Two pennies.

[23:43] Right. Okay, according to the, according to the news article, it said that Tina said that it would

[23:53] generate this new revenue would generate $3.2 million per rodent bridge. Is that

[24:00] interesting? That's not accurate.

[24:10] I'm going to say I'll have to make a moment for just a second. But what I'd like for you

[24:15] to do is if you've got some other questions or comments, go ahead and make those.

[24:18] Okay, so how much is rodent bridge spending now? I mean what was the budget

[24:26] last year is compared to what they wanted to spend for this next year.

[24:33] The expenditures are about the same. So let me just talk in general. The personnel for

[24:40] road and bridge were in general fund up until what we're going to do for next year. So general

[24:46] fund tax was paying for those personnel and the precinct funds were only paying for the material

[24:52] equipment and things like that. So we're trying to make road and bridge hole. So we're moving

[24:57] those expenditures over and because we're doing that we have to raise the road and bridge tax

[25:03] to cover those expenditures if that makes sense. But the last couple of years we've budgeted

[25:15] expenditures more than the revenue and we were using fund balance to cover those in the precincts.

[25:22] and trying to get some of the road work done,

[25:24] but we can't do that forever.

[25:26] So this is, the increase is going to cover making that whole,

[25:30] if that makes sense.

[25:33] Okay, all right.

[25:37] So instead of the general fund ever donating basically

[25:41] money to road and bridge, everything is just going to be in.

[25:45] Run bridge tax will pay for run bridge activities.

[25:48] Okay. And general fund tax will pay for public safety or okay. All right.

[26:02] Okay. So which expenses that are paid for through the general fund are going to move to the personnel personnel personnel and benefits. Okay. All right.

[26:12] All right. That makes sense. So how much will that reduce the general fund?

[26:22] It reduced the general fund, I believe about 4 million, it was about 7, 8 million for

[26:30] personnel, but then there was 3 million of road and bridge tax that's collected by the

[26:34] tax assessor, so the net of that is what's moving, so it's about 4, 5 million.

[26:40] and so

[26:44] that's 4.5 million just for the general

[26:46] son to play with.

[26:50] Sorry.

[26:52] But we're we're still raising the overall rate

[26:55] the combined rate.

[26:57] Three cents.

[26:59] Three cents.

[27:00] No, but yes, but one set of that is just to get us

[27:03] another revenue.

[27:04] The other two are actual increase in revenue.

[27:08] Our mental rate is our we had to increase the rate

[27:10] almost depending just to get to no to no new river.

[27:16] Okay. What's confusing about it is how we have to

[27:19] report it. So we did raise the rate enough to raise new revenue and that new revenue is enough.

[27:30] I don't remember the total amount. The current rate is 3327 and the no new revenue rate is 3463. So not

[27:37] yet any new revenue because the price of valuations actually the price of valuations didn't really go

[27:42] down that there were new exemptions put into place the last legislature that took our

[27:47] taxable valuations down. So to get the same revenue we got the year before we had to raise

[27:52] the tax rate one cent just to get the same revenue we had last year. Then we raised an additional

[27:58] two cents because we out of our precinct funds were funding a deficit of about five million dollars a year

[28:05] last year, at least last year,

[28:07] around the previous years.

[28:09] About five months, $5.5 million.

[28:11] Instead of raising taxes last year,

[28:14] we funded that out of our road and bridge,

[28:17] reserve funds this year,

[28:21] and at least I was expecting to get additional revenue

[28:24] off of new profit this year until that tax exemption had occurred

[28:28] and the unique exception increased dramatically

[28:31] again this year, which wiped out any new growth

[28:34] that we would have had to the tuna for about $3.7 million because we had to raise the factory

[28:39] in almost one cent just to recoup it. Okay, so it's always been, but John have always had

[28:45] the separate precincts, they've always had a dedicated spot. Yes, it's always been the

[28:51] road bridge fund. They just outrew itself and expenses. We never would, again, going back to the,

[28:58] when the legislature changed the law and we could only raise three and a half percent new revenue

[29:03] year without triggering other things, we never increased the road and the bridge rate because

[29:10] if you increase two cents by 0.35%, that's still two cents. You can't really get it there, but

[29:18] in fact, one year we did increase the bridge, the max we could, which was I think $200,000.

[29:22] Years and years ago, it was one of the first years that came in the play, and it just, it changed

[29:27] a very, very little bit. We hadn't disclosed it as a rate increase, not just a rate increase,

[29:34] but our maximum rate increase. I don't know, maybe it wouldn't even do it, but I think it's like

[29:40] $50,000. So it's very valuable. It's very valuable. That's 67 years ago, maybe. But so the expenses for

[29:49] Roman Bridge have just gone through the roof in the last five years. COVID, everything is associated with

[29:54] code with all this then you just you look at what it costable.

[30:00] All the road now, versus what it cost to maintain a road now versus two years, three years, four years, five years ago, it's nearly double. And so, we have augmented that two cent road bridge tax. Pay scroll, all really only paid from materials, anyway, but the materials and the equipment, all that is gotten so expensive, but not only will we before paying for employees out of the general fund, we started to at least this last year, a five million on this and buy materials.

[30:29] some emotions and machinery. And we just can't sustain that. And so this was the year that we said,

[30:36] hey, let's write size road and bridge. Now that we know we can and not trip all the crazy wires

[30:41] and everything, let's go ahead and call it what it is. But I don't want to, at least right now,

[30:48] at this point, I don't want to say that we're not rates of taxes because we are raising taxes

[30:53] two cents to get two cents worth of new revenue. And that's basically going to offset that $5 million

[30:58] dollars that we were we're already behind okay well that's about the $5 million and then that's

[31:05] we were we were budgeting to use reserves in the in the precinct funds because there were so much

[31:12] need for the roads but you can only raise so many taxes with the current rate that we had and so

[31:17] we're trying to shore that up and make it whole so we're trying to bring in enough revenue to cover all

[31:22] expenses that need to happen. Okay so from now on general funding will not. We'll have no

[31:28] part of anything in road and bridge. Correct. That's correct. So road and bridge may continue to try to

[31:34] increase taxes to continue and to try to make improvements. If we have to build roads, all this

[31:40] is just remains. We have to build roads in the future. What we like to do is if we ever go to the

[31:44] people in Bill County and say you want to bond the build new roads, we want to associate that with

[31:49] the road and bridge tax. And I have that tax to just road and bridge. Okay. That way

[31:53] is it goes away. It goes away. You're not sticking that general fund. And that may never

[31:56] go. That's right. Is debt in countries. Can I ask which percent has been in the most money now?

[32:03] Oh, it's all was. I'm pretty close. I think it's always been my percent.

[32:09] Three is that I have the roads in the county. Yeah. And so, but that works out. I think we're

[32:17] all relatively happy with where it works. Precinct three pays about half of the cost

[32:23] of all the equipment of the capital equipment, materials and then we just kind of just share that.

[32:31] We share that.

[32:32] Share that.

[32:33] That's a variety of ways from the number of things that he's precinct has.

[32:39] precinct three has I think the E3, 54% of somewhere in the neighborhood.

[32:44] to put all the labels in the counter in the other half,

[32:48] we'll just trigger it once the other three reasons.

[32:51] We'll stop approving more and more roads

[32:54] and subdivisions in pre-sake three, please.

[32:57] So we can control that a little bit, okay?

[33:02] I'll take that under bed.

[33:03] Please do.

[33:05] Thank you.

[33:07] Any questions, though?

[33:08] Thank you.

[33:14] Yes.

[33:15] Well, sorry.

[33:17] Yes, sir.

[33:17] Thank you.

[33:19] Say your name.

[33:20] January,

[33:21] and again, I've been pretty, you know, on the time.

[33:24] We've got just a couple of folks.

[33:26] Yes, sir.

[33:26] Thank you.

[33:26] Thank you for that.

[33:27] And it's welcome.

[33:28] Resident and Parker Heights.

[33:30] So my grandpa was told me.

[33:31] Yeah.

[33:32] Yeah.

[33:32] If you don't ask for it.

[33:33] So someone's got to ask for it.

[33:34] So first, first of all, I do want to thank you all for doing this.

[33:38] I spend a lot of time going out.

[33:40] And observing, engaging with the tax process throughout the county and many of the other

[33:46] taxing agencies you talk about.

[33:48] This is a very impressive forum and I think the only thing at this point to be a little

[33:53] bit is there are a lot of local folks out there online who talk a lot about everything that's

[33:59] happening right here and they're not here to talk about getting a lot of really good information

[34:05] that, quite frankly, everything they're saying is making sense. However, it's a very tough

[34:13] environment out there right now. And I would tell you that the talking points you gave tonight

[34:17] are true. It's also the same ones that other taxing entities are giving. I suspect that this

[34:24] hospital district will give them the very close to it, and we're not talking anymore about the

[34:29] addition of an extra cup of coffee each month. We're getting close to a car payment at this point.

[34:34] And for the families of this county, that's that's that's

[34:37] challenge. And so I think to address this, so my specific

[34:42] ask I would ask of there and it's the same I've been

[34:45] given to everyone. I spoke last night, heart crates, I spoke

[34:48] CTC, my KISD.

[34:52] I DNN in our rates, I think is what I would ask everyone to do

[34:57] your best or to stay at the current rate that you're asked.

[35:00] One of the to whichever is sort of higher, I recognize that

[35:03] And the way that this is evaluated when the property comes out, when those additions of

[35:08] property valuation come in, that sort of sets the value you need as the governance

[35:12] to properly maintain, to service the roads and things we need for good governance.

[35:18] So that makes sense.

[35:20] In the environment we're at, and that constriction of the NNR, that then sort of limits of not

[35:26] letting that revenue get out of control.

[35:28] Or staying through a detractment.

[35:30] and it derives there and taxpayers to pull, you know,

[35:32] and no one's been recalled because of it, then, you know,

[35:35] hold right there and then they give you a little more

[35:36] and because for us, that's the case going on down

[35:38] in our price, what if they're in an lower,

[35:41] they decided to go way higher

[35:43] and pull a whole lot of revenue

[35:45] that previous council that said they didn't need

[35:47] and now we're going to throw it all in there.

[35:49] And I would remind again that the point was made

[35:51] that this is a proposal, a lot of work is obviously going

[35:54] and it's great that they appreciate.

[35:56] As taxpayer, I appreciate saying that,

[35:58] that amount of due diligence, but there is still time to decide otherwise, and I would

[36:04] ask that you consider staying at the dinner normally, and then us figure out how we can

[36:11] tighten up to get there. It's the same ask I'm asking you every entity, but I do recognize

[36:17] that that's going to hurt somewhere, but I think that that also gives the insight to taxpayers

[36:27] of why, as long as it's connected to that,

[36:31] like this is why, if I can't do those things,

[36:33] well, you wanted the tax rate to stay there

[36:35] and this is what's gonna happen.

[36:37] So it may spur that further down,

[36:39] tax rate to the side, okay, well,

[36:40] maybe I am willing to do that.

[36:42] And you all get a lot more insight

[36:43] from across the county,

[36:45] and maybe that's the feedback you're getting.

[36:46] And so that might be right.

[36:47] But for my standpoint, what I've asked

[36:49] was try to keep taxes right where they're at.

[36:51] I think the danger that we're at,

[36:53] there's a lot of eyeballs, a lot of talk

[36:55] of the state side and they got come in and unfortunately as well as this body is doing with this that is not the case where a lot of entities out there be quite frankly grab that whatever tax dollars they possibly can get and unfortunately everyone is going to bear the brunt of what the the total tax cycle ends up becoming a problem is an area is going to be everyone who raised taxes gets a lump into that and

[37:24] And I hope that that doesn't happen.

[37:27] So I appreciate if you can translate that in an hour right now.

[37:29] Thank you for your time.

[37:30] Thank you very much.

[37:31] It's making.

[37:33] That's the last public participation form that I have.

[37:37] All right.

[37:39] All right, this time I'll close the public hearing.

[37:41] And again, Monday, next Monday, August 24th,

[37:48] is when we will set the official tax rate for FY27

[37:51] as well as a tough budget for FY27 also.

[37:55] Thank you both for being here, thank you for your comments,

[37:57] thank you for your questions, thank you for your insight.

[38:00] It's always helpful to hear, and thank you.

[38:04] Exciting one, our agenda is to consider the appointment

[38:08] of Bill Kennedy Magistrate through,

[38:10] I have a motion on this item.

[38:12] Thank you, Bruce.

[38:14] Motion by Chris Schneider is both.

[38:17] That's Bob.

[38:18] You'll be in, don't, don't drive.

[38:29] This John's a few come forward NOW.

[38:33] Going you in a second, but gives you an opportunity to make a few comments of any

[38:39] I mean, you know, Bell County sought legislation in the last session to allow a naval

[38:49] legislation to allow us to create the office of a Bell County magistrate.

[38:54] We got more successful in new legislation past.

[38:57] We did fill that position, but the position became vacant.

[39:00] Our commissioners went through a process that they used and conducted those recently.

[39:07] And the outcome of those interviews was an extension of a conditional offer of employment

[39:14] to this Jones as the Bill County and I just rate.

[39:17] That was conditioned upon court action tonight this evening that the court would refer and

[39:23] make that appointment.

[39:25] So with that, that's the background, brief background anyway.

[39:28] Miss Jones, can you say a little bit about your background?

[39:30] who you're looking for? Well, my name is Bernie Jones. I've been a resident of Bell County for

[39:35] about the last 15 years. I love this community. This is where I actually got my professional

[39:41] start as a criminal defense attorney and then as a misdemeanor prosecutor. I am an introvert outside

[39:48] of the courthouse, but in the courtroom is when I really come alive and I really do appreciate and

[39:55] value the courtroom. So I'm very glad to be back in the courtroom. And it is my honor to serve my community.

[40:06] Mr. President, comments, questions. Thank you for your answer.

[40:14] We've got some paperwork to open office, so swear me in. And your effective day, I think we've got

[40:21] settled for September, August 31st, excuse me, on the state first.

[40:44] All right, four is right, and if we have anyone to say hi, I'm very jealous, you're

[40:54] I'm following swear, before I turn, that I will basically execute the duties of the office.

[41:01] The duties of the office.

[41:03] The law can't be mandatory.

[41:04] The state of Texas, the state of Texas and will to the best of my ability.

[41:10] Preserve, protect me, preserve, protect and avenge the Constitution.

[41:16] The Constitution involves the United States and laws of the United States and of this state.

[41:20] So I'm not being honest.

[41:21] So I'm not being honest.

[41:22] Thank you.

[41:29] Thank you.

[41:31] Actually, I do friends and family.

[41:33] I have my husband,

[41:34] and you know that jealousy standing up.

[41:36] And then my friend,

[41:39] Mr. Cal Rowland.

[41:40] And this door features in the back.

[41:43] Very well.

[41:44] Thank you.

[41:45] Okay, Mr. Jen,

[41:46] I'm going to swim right here.

[41:48] This is going to be a long way.

[41:50] This

[41:53] one will be recorded

[41:54] and the official code of records in the county court office.

[42:40] That's a little minor detail, um, I do have a motion.

[42:44] I'm just running, I'm running.

[42:45] You're like my story.

[42:48] I'm very proud of that.

[42:50] I'm very proud of that.

[42:51] This is more of a ratification.

[42:55] I'm very proud of that.

[42:56] I'm very proud of that.

[42:56] Thank you.

[42:57] All right.

[42:57] I do have a motion in a second to ratify your appointment,

[43:02] and the squarely in of the street Jones

[43:05] as the candidate has to show you.

[43:06] All those will favor me to keep us saying I

[43:08] can you pose, be absent, sorry.

[43:11] Now it's easy.

[43:12] Now it's easy.

[43:14] All right. Next item on our agenda is item D. Consider an approved resolution regarding

[43:24] a notice of application for an air quality standard permit for an animal park is considered.

[43:31] There's a motion on this item. Motion by Commissioner Schneider is your second, Senator.

[43:36] I'll answer your question.

[43:37] The second question is,

[43:39] commissioners, we did some discussion last workshop about a

[43:46] CCQ air quality permit that was filed for an

[43:51] Anthropoccus incinerator.

[43:53] Don't run to the location, but it's on the

[43:55] Resolution that you have in front of you.

[43:57] The City of Elton and Delta and ISD both indicated some

[44:01] As in questions or concerns that they wanted to address in that application process

[44:06] You clear the county has no approval or denial authority in terms of

[44:12] It is solely in the province of Tc and State

[44:17] But we are committed and we did receive notice 30-day window and we could file any any resolution that we might have

[44:26] Any questions any issues that we'd like to have addressed

[44:29] I think the resolution and somebody else when you read it, but the resolution that you have in the packet identifies the concerns that were voiced by

[44:44] Health and ISD and by the City of Belton also.

[44:49] The recollection is it was just wanting to make sure that T-SET would consider the location,

[44:54] and others, noise, any cultural public health impacts.

[45:00] We simply ask the reaffirms of what the city and the school district have both asked for in terms of the evaluation. In the past, then on this resolution, be submitted to GCQ, so that they can consider it in their process, whether they approved it or not. If you have any questions, if you have any.

[45:23] See none. All is available and you get my saying aye.

[45:25] I want to be opposed to the abstinence, I think, for item E is consider authorizing the

[45:37] candidate's contract with centrifugal castings for the sale of Belk County on property

[45:45] located 34-1 range road to Potexas and that is legally described as follows being 3.0 acre

[45:53] improvement to the J. F. Ferguson abstract, a bunch of letters and numbers, a city of

[46:02] Temple, Belk County, Texas, and it's the Belkab property ID, 1-883-0 in the amount of 1,835,000

[46:14] dollars.

[46:15] There's a motion on this item.

[46:24] I'm talking about this property also, I think you've got, oh, Jeff, this item if approved

[46:35] allows judge to participate in the closing, that is set for August 24th of the set properly

[46:41] the amount listed in the agenda and it's necessary for closing documents to have in the record.

[46:51] And we've had this, this property actually reverted to us from, you know,

[47:00] services that had the property for many, many years that didn't need the property. So,

[47:05] the reverted clause on the board can be brought back to County. We had discussions about whether

[47:10] not mean whether the property will be

[47:13] beneficial in our hands or back on private

[47:15] sector hands and so this puts it back in your

[47:17] front because I just want to say I just

[47:21] laid my eyes on the tween first very

[47:24] fine and misproved by the ones who did

[47:27] all the work to get there. So I want to

[47:29] real appreciate all the work everybody's

[47:33] going to get us to help sell the property.

[47:36] All right. Any other questions?

[47:37] Mr. Cummins, not a whole favorite kicker saying aye.

[47:41] As opposed to the abstentions.

[47:44] All right, questions for the last item on our agenda.

[47:46] Unless we can get to the next item.

[47:48] So for the business court, we adjourn.

[47:53] Thank you all.

[47:54] Thank you.

[47:57] Thank you.

Aug 19, 2026 Special Commissioner's Court

Transcript