County tax rate rises; frustration among commission over increase

The Cameron County Commissioners court approved a one-penny tax increase and finalized a balanced county budget for fiscal year 2009-2010 on Thursday evening by a 3-2 majority.

Commissioners Sofia C. Benavides, Precinct 1, and John Wood, Precinct 2, dissented, saying a tax increase should be avoided.

"I am not going to shoot my taxpayers," Benavides said.

But aside from suggesting that more money should be pulled from the county’s Road and Bridge Fund, the two commissioners had no other ideas about how to avoid a tax increase. County Judge Carlos Cascos said he was frustrated to hear the dissenting opinions after the court had carefully combed over every line item in the budget.

Precinct 4 Commissioner Edna Tamayo told Wood and Benavides that she has more than 500 miles of ailing roads in her precinct, which includes Los Fresnos and Rio Hondo, and was hit the hardest in the county by Hurricane Dolly.

"My estimate for maintenance costs doesn’t even include the possibility of another hurricane," said Tamayo, adding that the current amount of money in the Road and Bridge Fund was only sufficient to improve roads already damaged.

The tax increase will change the tax rate from about .35 cents per $100 of taxable value to .363191 cents per $100 of taxable value. That means, if a Cameron County resident owns a home with a taxable value of $100,000, he or she would pay about $363 instead of $353 a year in property taxes.

The otherwise quiet and cordial county meeting turned argumentative after Benavides and Woods voiced their dissent to the tax increase.

Benavides told Cascos that she believed more money could be found to cut somewhere in the budget, and Cascos told her to direct her comments to the county auditor, not to him.

"You can’t adopt a deficit budget," Cascos said.

"Why?" Benavides said.

"Because it’s illegal," replied Precinct 3 Commissioner David Garza.

Ultimately, a $40,000 deficit that remained before this week’s budget vote was taken care of with a reduction to the county jail’s maintenance and operations budget.