FY 2025 Tax Rate Discussion
August 2024 by Alicia Leyva Stevens
On August 12, 2024 the Town of Anthony Council authorized the staff to publish the intended Tax Rate of $ 0.888550 per $100.00 value of property, known as the De minimis rate, for the fiscal year 2025. This tax rate will be published in the newspaper to inform the citizens. This is the first step in the process for adopting a tax rate for the fiscal year 2025.
The town council held the first workshops to work on the budget Tuesday August 20, 2024. Present at the meeting were mayor Anthony Turner, the council; seat 1 Alicia Stevens, seat 2 Sean Weeks, mayor pro-tem Louie Alfaro, seat 3 council Todd Wolford, and department heads; Valerie Armendariz, clerk, Jessica Mayeaux, accounting manager, Isael Martinez, public works superintendent, and police chief Carlos Enriquez. Jessica presented the proposed budget revenue and expenditures for 2025 using the 0.888550 tax rate.
Why the higher tax rate? The City of El Paso’s current 2024 tax rate is 0.818875. Canutillo is not incorporated so they don’t pay a city tax. The Village of Vinton’s tax rate is 0.663196. It seems that every household, business, and government entity needs a raise to make ends meet. Inflation is distressing all of us.
Our employees are requesting raises, the prices for goods and services have increased dramatically, our streets, especially 3rd St need major repair, and then there’s our water and sewer.
Our water and wastewater utilities need repairs, expansion and upgrading. Neglect from previous administrations compounded the problems and the cost. Public works superintendent Isael Martinez presented the council with his assessment of needs to meet our growing community, government regulations and safety standards. His plan to meet current and future demands for sustainability was divided into 16 projects and four years. This would include pipeline replacements, treatment plant upgrades, and system expansions. His projected cost to complete all 16 projects is $9,745,000. The amount of revenue required per year to complete these projects is $2,436,250, funded from a combination of utility revenues, state grants, and low-interest loans. This would require a capital improvement amount of $180,000 for water and $180,000 for wastewater to be calculated into our budget for fiscal year 2024-2025. A water and sewer rate study that was commission by council, yet to be presented to us, will likely result in an increase of our water and sewer fees, but in addition to that we would have to pay $8 for water and $12 for sewer. We don’t yet know the fee increase for hauling our trash by El Paso Disposal.
So, what’s the solution? Do we increase the tax rate to 0.888550 and trim down costs to bare minimum and still pay the some additional fees? Or do we become like The Village of Vinton and sell our water to the El Paso Water District and pay them for water and wastewater services.
Mayor Anthony Turner is studying this option to present to the town council for more discussions. The tax rates and a brief definition for each follow.
The No New Revenue Tax Rate is calculated with a formula that assumes that if home values increase, the tax rate should decrease (the tax rate for fiscal year 2024 was 0.780636) to create the same amount of revenue as it did the year before. The calculated No New Revenue Tax Rate would be 0.725994.
The Voter-approval Tax Rate is a calculated maximum rate allowed by law without voter approval. The voter-approval tax rate would be 0.820510.
The De minimis Tax Rate is calculated to give smaller taxing units, including cities with a population of less than 30,000, some flexibility to budget for extraordinary costs that may not be possible under the three and a half percent voter-approval tax rate. Voters may petition to hold a tax approval election if the de minimis rate exceeds the voter-approval tax rate. The de minimis tax rate would be 0.888550.
Our home’s appraised value, calculated for all properties by El Paso CAD, is used to calculate the taxable value. The taxable value for our homes is then used to determine the amount to be paid to six entities by multiplying it by the tax rates and added together to give us the total tax due. The six entities and the 2024 tax rates for each entity are below:
1) Town of Anthony- 0.780636
2) El Paso County- 0.458889
3) Anthony ISD- 0.880300
4) EP Community College- 0.115717
5) Emergency Service #2- 0.086457
6) University Medical Center- 0.235650
Total Tax Rate- 2.557649
Calculate Taxes: take the Taxable Value, divide by 100, and multiplying the result by the tax rate. Tax Amount = Taxable Value/100*Tax Rate ( https://www.epcounty.com/taxoffice/propertytaxes.htm )
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