The Levelland City Council held a regular meeting Monday, at City Hall.
Continuing their budget and tax rate discussions, Interim City Manager Joe Cavazos presented the multiple numbers that were provided by the Hockley County Tax Assessor.
The No-New-Revenue Tax Rate would be the tax rate needed to raise the same amount of revenue as the previous year. The number that was presented was $0.504558.
The Voter-Approval Tax Rate would produce 3.5% more tax revenue than was raised last year, and is the highest rate that council can approve before an election is required. That number is presented at $0.508254.
For the De Minimis Rate, it applies to municipalities with less than 30,000 in population, and is equal to the sum of the no-newrevenue maintenance rate and operations rate. This is estimated to raise $330,000 more in revenue and is presented at $0.557450.
The council set the ceiling that would act as the most they would consider, and it was recommended by staff that the De Minimis rate be adopted.
Councilwoman Buxkemper added that city employees had not received a raise in over 3 years, which she saw as unacceptable. Included in her statement along with raises for all city staff, was the addition of another fireman at the fire station.
Mayor Pinner expressed to the public that city taxes had either remained the same or even gone down for the past 6 years, and Councilman Myatt stated the price of everything was still very high, despite this.
Council members voted in favor of setting the De Minimus Rate as the ceiling, however, councilman Jim Myatt did not for or against the proposal.
Moving forward, city staff have been working to strengthen game room laws and regulations as a result Operation Snake Eyes, in which both local and federal law enforcement agencies came together to break up legal activity going on throughout the area’s game room businesses.
Since placing two moratoriums on issuing any new game room permits, the council approved the new ordinance dictating policies and required practices for game room establishments and held its first reading.
Changes and requirements include raising the annual license fee for a game room permit to $1,000, increase visibility to the public by requiring clear, unobstructed windows on walls facing the public and charging a $15 fee for each “amusement redemption machine”.
The county has also worked on a similar ordinance.
The Texas Community Group has been helping the City since 2019 to sell their unoccupied land and properties in an effort to return derelict properties to the tax role.
The property at 103 Avenue M is the latest and has been purchased for $3,100. The council accepted the proposition.