County approves budget, tax rate for FY 2015
We now know what you could be paying in taxes to the county next year. Monday, county commissioners voted to approve the 2015 tax rate and finalize the budget.
The county’s $252 million total general fund budget will be finalized over the next week by county staff, and county commissioners voted on the tax rate that will bring in the revenue to support that budget for next year.
A lot of things are going into the new tax rate, including a commitment to keep a higher than required reserve ratio, meant to help keep the county solvent.
The new tax rate of about 45 cents per $100 home value is a 1.9 cent increase over last year’s rate of about 43 cents. The 1.9 cent rise will raise taxes about $20 on a $100,000 home in El Paso County.
That rate will allow the county to build a $34 million reserve, about 13.5 percent of the overall budget, to have cash on hand to pay bills and salaries ahead of tax collection.
The tax increase was approved 4-1, with Commissioner Vince Perez voting against it. He said it’s not necessary to have such a high reserve.
“A 12.5 percent fund balance was sufficient,” Perez said. “Other counties in their financial policies have a 12.5 percent fund balance, and I think it’s something El Paso County should explore.”
But County Judge Veronica Escobar said that the increase puts the county on the track to keep increases low or even level for future years.
“I do think we can achieve some really significant cuts this year, some savings,” Escobar said. “Not outright cuts, but I think there are some things that we can reorganize. I think there are some programs that we may want to eliminate. But we just ran out of time.”
Some of the other things going into that budget include the pay and benefit increase for sheriff’s deputies, over $2 million worth anticipated as part of the new collective bargaining agreement with the county.
The tentative agreement was also approved by commissioners Monday, and more information about the deal should be released once it’s approved by the sheriff’s union in the next month or so.
