Published: August 14, 2008 05:30 pm      

Lower county taxes called for

The Johnson County Commissioners Court proposed a property tax rate late Monday afternoon, which is about 5 cents lower than the current rate.

The current rate is 40.9752 cents per $100 of property value. The proposed rate for the 2008-09 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, is 35.9498 cents per $100 of property value.

“I don’t know that we’ve ever proposed a decrease that big before,” County Judge Roger Harmon said.

The proposed rate, if approved, would mark the fourth straight year of lowered property tax rates for Johnson County residents, Harmon said. The rate has decreased 7.54 cents from 2005’s rate of 43.4878 cents per $100 to the current proposed rate, he said.

Commissioners will vote on the proposed rate in September. Commissioners scheduled two public hearings to allow residents to comment on the proposed rate. The hearings are scheduled for Aug. 25 and Sept. 8. Both hearings are at 9 a.m. at the Johnson County Courthouse at 2 Main St. in Cleburne.

The proposed rate exceeds the rollback rate, which means residents could petition for a rollback election if the proposed rate is approved. The rollback rate, according to a release from the Texas Comptroller’s office, provides the taxing unit with about the same amount of tax revenues it spent the previous year plus an 8 percent increase for those operations.