Property Taxes and City Services
According to the Office of the Comptroller for the state of Texas, property taxes have been the foundation of city support since shortly after the founding of the state in 1836. Clearly, the challenges of running a city have changed drastically since then, particularly for communities such as Richardson that attained full-scale city status in more recent history.
Today, just as our household budgets can be challenged, the city increasingly is left with more month than money in its operations. Clearly, much of this is COVID-related but, unfortunately, it’s also a result of combination of state mandates and community realities. As a result, we need to rethink how we operate to maintain the high quality of life we’ve all come to take for granted in a sustainable manner.
Some candidates for City Council are talking about simple solutions, such as cutting city services. However, in listening to current city leaders, that approach has been tested and proven to be just plain wrong. When COVID-related absences required the City to reduce solid waste collections to once per week and suspended brush and bulky item collections (BABIC), these reductions in service generated the largest amount of concerns voiced by the City’s individual and business citizens. In short, taxpayers expect a solid foundation of city services. Simply identifying basic services to cut is just that – a simple, but ineffective answer to a complex question.
Additionally, the impact of increasing property values means a larger tax bill for citizens – even without an increase in tax rates. At the end of the day, the total cost of owning a property is more important than simply the tax rate.
Nobody wants higher taxes. Not the city, for many reasons and, certainly, not taxpayers. Yet, dependable city services are part of what has made Richardson one of the most desirable cities in North Texas in which to live or to operate a business. It’s not about making a simple decision or flip-flopping on the issue to suit the moment or the audience. As one of your City Council members, I will bring my experience from working as a problem-solving, consulting engineer on major municipal infrastructure projects to finding the right ways of balancing revenue and expense to deliver the best possible experiences for all citizens in Richardson.
These concerns share a common consideration: the need to address revenue aspects in an increasingly complicated city finance environment. We must maintain a steady commercial share of the tax revenue to prevent Richardson residential property owners, particularly senior citizen homeowners, from being overly burdened. To accomplish this, we must be even more strategic in city planning to use our finite land assets wisely to support appropriate growth.