The Lewisville ISD Board of Trustees met today to canvass the results of the May 12th election, and swear in new trustees Trisha Sheffield (Left), and Kathy Duke (Center).
Workers on Wednesday were maintaining power lines that run down Edmonds Lane in Lewisville. 100 feet up in a cherry picker in high winds, between high tension power lines, they installed pulleys on the overhead shield wire. The shield wire does not carry current, but is grounded, and is meant to protect the power lines from lightning strikes.
Lewisville has the third lowest amount of total debt-service property taxes, compared to these other cities in North Texas.
Property taxes for cities are collected on one bill, but the rate is actually composed of two individual rates added together. One rate is for maintenance and operations, and the other rate is for Interest and Sinking Fund (I&S) which pays back bond debt. The I&S tax rate is capped by the voters who are the ones who approve increases when they vote for bonds to be issued for major public works.
Lewisville's I&S tax rate was $0.1173 per $100 valuation, making up $175.95 per year for the owner of a $150,000 home.
Residents of Farmers Branch (an older community with less population growth and new construction) would have paid $60.45, and residents of Roanoke would have paid $419.40.
Of the various comparison cities in the North Texas area, Lewisville has the third lowest tax-supported debt to value ratio, according to the numbers given by the Texas Bond Review Board, as of August 2011.
With $6.4 Billion in taxable value last year, the total tax-supported debt (some of which is actually supported by sales taxes mostly paid by non-residents) was only $98.6 million. The tax-supported debt-to-value ratio for Lewisville was 1.55%
Farmers Branch was lowest at 0.66% and Denton was highest at 5.04%.
Lewisville has the second lowest tax supported debt per capita of these comparison cities around North Texas.
Included in the $98,565,000 that the Texas Bond Review Board used for their total last August are some tax-supported debts that are actually paid by sales tax, which comes mostly from people other than residents, but for comparison purposes, their number is $1,034 per resident. That debt has a short lifespan, being about 75% paid off within 10 years, according to the Fitch bond rating agency.
John Gorena and his protege, Steve Hill have doubled down on their insistence that the City of Lewisville owes too much debt - despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, and their being corrected on what numbers to use. This is now Steve Hill's third election to assert that.
I would say that maybe they didn't teach Finance or Accounting where Gorena went to college, but he went to North Texas, and I took Finance and Accounting there. Gorena and Hill need to go talk to someone who understands finance or accounting and have them explain the time value of money.
Both of these guys are out of their league wanting to be in elected office. It's not just that they're ignorant; it's that they refuse to learn, and reject any facts that don't fit their ideology. Municipal finance (or any finance for that matter) are not overly simple topics, but you have to really try hard to screw up numbers as bad as these two, then stick by your answer and call the rest of the world crazy when they don't change accounting conventions to see it your way.
Despite falling on the same day as Chamber of Commerce's Great Race, and county conventions for Republicans and Democrats state-wide, Keep Lewisville Beautiful had a successful city-wide cleanup Saturday with over 300 participants.
Lewisville Texan Journal had another team entered in this year's event, with several of our readers and contributors joining us to pick up trash. Once again, we were assigned to clean up some illegal dumping and litter at the Fox Hembry Cemetery. Even though we had a much smaller team than in the past, the sheer volume of dumping we picked up gave us the first place trophy for "Large Group".
The huge jacuzzi tub full of rancid garbage that we found was this year's "most unusual". Last year, I think somebody found a mannequin head.
Anyhow, we don't do this for the trophies, but I'm so appreciative of the folks who volunteered with us on Saturday that I wanted to share this.
Thanks to TexasMama and her husband, Barry Minoff, Jim Collier, and Seth Southwell. Councilman T.J. Gilmore helped out at cleanup H.Q., and Mayor Dean Ueckert was also on-hand.
So... Can we now say "The Award-winning Lewisville Texan Journal?" ;)
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