ESD proposes tax rate

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GONZALES — The Gonzales County Emergency Services District (ESD) heard from its treasurer, Donald Rihn, on the proposed tax rate that the district looks to adopt after a couple of required public hearings.

Rihn discussed the proposed Gonzales County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) budget that was given to them, and how it was approximately $966,624 short of projected revenues. The overall EMS budget is $3.185 million. He did say that EMS was in the process of entering collections to make up the gap.

Thus, Rihn offered a rollback tax rate of .0506 percent per $100 of valuation. That would net $1,361,946 for EMS at an estimated collection rate of 97 percent, after deducting $49,000 for ESD budget expenses.

It was decided to propose this tax rate instead of exceeding the rate, which could draw a petition from voters to have an election on the rate. This was decided to be too much of a risk and too time consuming to consider.

ESD will now hold two public hearings on the matter, on Aug. 30 and Sept. 6, both at 4 p.m. in the commissioner's courtroom. The next ESD meeting is scheduled for Aug. 23.

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