Commissioners set budget, tax rate

Commissioners (left to right) Joey Sullivan, David Ferguson, County Judge Byron Ryder, and Mark Ivey vote for the same tax rate as last year. Van’Go’photo The Leon County Commissioners held a special called meeting on September 2 at which they voted to adopt the proposed 2009-2010 budget and levy the new tax rate. Commissioner Dean Player was on county business in Washington, but all other members of the court were present and voted unanimously to levy a tax rate of $0.417777 per $100 value.

The tax rate is the same as last year, and in fact has not increased since 2005. Oil and gas declines in the past year have brought property values down, however, so this will reflect a decrease in county revenue. "We could've raised it to $0.54 without a rollback -- could have raised it eight cents to meet revenue -- but we have pledged not to, so we've made some cutbacks," Judge Byron Ryder explained.

The county budget, in its entirety, is available online at: www.co.leon.tx.us