Rich Flowers
The Athens Review
Athens —
The deadline is approaching for Henderson County Judge David Holstein to submit a proposed 2011 county budget.
With the document due by the end of July, Commissioners Court is scheduled to meet Friday to join the judge in some fine tuning.
Holstein received property tax values from the Henderson County Appraisal District earlier this week, and will be able to see how the incoming dollars match up with anticipated expenses.
“Historically, it’s a crunch sometimes in the last week, because we get our certified numbers,” Holstein said. “Right now ,I’m going over it with the auditor to see where we stand.”
The total appraised value of properties within the county totaled $8.107 billion, while the taxable value was $5.543 billion. The previous year, the appraised value was $7.898 billion and the taxable value $5.404 billion.
“My proposed tax rate is probably going to be the same as last year’s,” Holstein said. “We’re working hard to keep it the same.”
Holstein said a major obstacle in the new budget is to cover the increased cost of employee health insurance.
“An issue that is a challenge is an 11-percent increase in health insurance costs,” Holstein said. “That’s in excess of $300,000.”
Once the proposed budget is in place, a public hearing will be scheduled to get citizens’ comments. Commissioners can suggest amendments until the final budget is adopted, probably in September.
“I know over my eight years of working with the Commissioners Court that this court works well together,” Holstein said. “Everyone on the court certainly does all they can to maximize the tax dollars that we take in. Last year, we reduced our tax rate. In general, the court does all we can to minimize the burden on the taxpayers, and still provide the services we need.
The county budget runs from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31.
