Gonzales City Council proposes 35-cent tax rate for 2025

The Gonzales City Council voted 3-1 on Thursday, Aug. 14 to propose a maximum tax rate of 35 cents per $100 valuation — an increase of 5.34 cents, or an 18 percent hike over last year’s rate of 29.66 cents per $100 valuation.

The proposed rate is 5.7 cents higher than the no-new-revenue rate of 29.30 cents and 4.7 cents higher than the voter-approval tax rate of 30.30 cents, but 2.01 cents less than the de minimis rate of 37.01 cents — the highest rate the city can adopt without triggering an automatic voter approval election.

Council members will hear public comment on the proposed tax rate at a public hearing to be held Thursday, Sept. 4, at 6 p.m. at City Hall.

Gonzales County Tax Assessor-Collector Crystal Cedillo addressed the council and explained to them what the no-new-revenue rate, voter-approval rate and de minimis rate are and how they and the city’s debt rate are calculated.

Cedillo said the city certified to her it has debt to meet for 2025 of $814,762.50, so based on a 100 percent anticipated collection rate, divided by taxable value of $632,841,674 equals a debt rate for 2025 of 12.87 cents per $100 valuation.

She explained the no-new-revenue rate is the tax rate for the 2025 tax year that will raise the same amount of property tax revenue for the city from the same properties in both the 2024 tax year and the 2025 tax year.

Normally, the voter-aproval rate is the highest tax rate a city can adopt without holding an election to seek voter approval, but because cities may set what is called a de minimis rate, they can exceed the voter-approval rate without an automatic election if the de minimis rate exceeds the voter approval rate.

The de minimis rate is the rate you get by adding together the no-new-revenue maintenance and operations rate, the current debt rate and the rate that will raise $500,000 in tax revenue, Cedillo said.

If a city adopts a tax rate that is higher than the voter-approval rate but less than the de minimis rate, the “qualified voters” of the city can petition the city to require an election be held to reduce the tax rate to the voter-approval rate. If a majority of voters reject the proposed tax rate, the tax rate automatically rolls back to the voter-approval rate.

Mayor Isaac Anzaldua said council members have “worked the budget two or three times, forward and backwards, and it’s stretched as far as it’s going to go.”

“There's a lot of things in there that are still needing to be addressed,”Anzaldua said. “We've cut back on certain items. We've moved things. Our people will say, ‘You can reduce it. You can be innovative. You can change things.’ Well, you can only do so much, because eventually you'll start to wear on the people, and you don't want to do that.”

Anzaldua said without looking at a move upwards in the tax rate “it's hard to put cameras and safety equipment and body cams on our police officers. It's tough to look at an increase for our employees.”

“We have guys and ladies who work and they work hard out there. You see them every day out there doing their job,” Anzaldua added. “It's hard to consider that. That's something we have to look at. We have needs. We've nursed out some equipment as long as it'll last. We've done a great job bringing it as long as it'll go, but we have to look at replacing it.”

Anzaldua said he wants to make sure the city addresses funding for beautification, infrastructure, the Summer Youth Program, the Senior Citizen Program and the Mental Health Advisory Board program, calling them “extremely important to Gonzales and the growth of our community.”

He said some surrounding cities have higher tax rates than Gonzales even though they are at the same size population.

“Some always say, ‘What about this town? What about that town? Look what they're doing. Look how they're growing,” Anzaldua said. “But you also look at how we're at 29 and you have cities that are within 30 mile range at 31, 40, 45, 47, 50, 51 and they're the same size as us.

“They are expanding. They are having growth. They are seeing things, but they've also taken the chance. Sometimes you have to step outside that box to do so, and you have to believe not only in yourself, but in your community and your city.”

He said the city had a tax rate in 2005 of 28 cents and in 2024 it was at 29.3 cents, so “it's hard to say the city raises taxes every year.”

“As a council, we're elected to look out for the future of Gonzales, and to stand on that, and to believe in that, and to work with that, and that's what we're here for,” Anzaldua added. “Keep in mind, a cap is just the highest that we're willing to look at. It does not mean that's where we're going, but I encourage every council member to go back to your neighborhoods. Go back to knocking on doors, go back and talk to your constituents, ask them what they want. The ones who elected us to be here — talk with them directly. Go back and visit with you and find out what they desire.

“Invite them when we have a public hearing, to come and speak on behalf. If they're against it, it's okay, but they're for it, that's okay too, but they're here to speak freely, without reservation, without any any ill will just come and speak, and this one we know as a community of Gonzales, where you would like to go.”

Anzaldua said he wanted to see the city look at proposing a rate of 36 cents, or just a little over a cent under the de minimis rate, although city staff had recommended adopting the voter approval rate of 30.30 cents. Precinct 2 Councilmember Mariah Jordan instead proposed a tax rate of 35 cents and got a second from Precinct 4 Councilmember Harold Strom.

However, Precinct 3 Councilmember Lorenzo Hernandez said he “also meets with the constituents and has visited with them for years.”

“While I have heard some of the comments that have been made by the mayor — I mean that was a heck of a speech, by the way — the people that I talk to sit in my office, and they have to sit there and decide what bill they're not going to pay, and I've seen it too many years, and that's why I try to keep the rate to a minimum, if I can,” Hernandez said.

“This is the first time I've ever, in the years that I've been doing this, that I've ever heard of a rate going up above what staff is actually recommending. I mean, it's almost unheard of. I'm willing to go a little bit, but I can't support that much. My constituents would not allow that.”

Strom said he doesn’t think “anybody in this room or up here wants to raise taxes.”

“We have a city that the infrastructure is 100 years old,” Strom said. “And if anybody drives around town and sees all the streets in disrepair, all these things cost money, and because of the reductions over the years, we're in a situation where these things need to be done or further deterioration takes place.

“What does that mean? Well, there has to be some type of increase, okay? If the tax rates go up, we have to pay it as well — everybody sitting up here. Nobody wants that. But what do we do? How do we cover this? There's been really no new housing built here in this town for years. You don't have new housing, you don't have additional taxation, you don't have families spending money.”

Strom said there is “no happy solution that's going to make everybody happy.”

“It's difficult to sit up here and have to think about doing this, knowing you're going to make a lot of people unhappy if that's the case, but I would ask everybody to consider it,” Strom said. “Since I've been up here, I've heard this expression ‘quality of life.’ If I've heard it once, I've heard it 150 times, but with diminishing funds that come into the coffers, what happens to our quality of life? And I would ask everyone to think about that as well as we make these decisions.

“And yes, I think for those there's certainly a contingent of people that this becomes an even greater hardship than others, and those people need to be taken into consideration as well. So if anybody has a, you know, a magical bullet on how to solve this, I am absolutely open. Please come and speak your mind. Be heard.”

Anzaldua, Jordan and Strom voted in favor of setting the proposed rate at 35 cents and Hernandez voted against it. Precinct 1 Councilmember Joseph “Poochy” Kridler was not present at the meeting.