Final Lake Cities Proposed Contract

The City Manager brought the terms for the final proposal for the Lake Cities Fire Services Contract to the council July 31, 2012. These are the terms that the City Councils for Lake Dallas and Hickory Creek expressed agreement to in votes the prior week. At this point, the cities of Lake Dallas and Hickory Creek have not signed the Fire Services Contract, although their vote would seem to be an indication that they are willing to do so on these terms.

So what are the terms that have been negotiated? The changes from the original proposal the City of Corinth sent the other towns are primarily revolving around the costs each city is willing to pay. There were also some other minor changes.

AV Property values

Property valuations are very slightly up compared to last year's certified property valuation for the City of Corinth. The certified property valuation reports were published at the end of July. The total property valuation for the city is used to determine the property tax rate necessary for the next fiscal year budget (starts in October 2012).

State law ties the effective tax rate to the comparison of this year's net property valuation in the city with the certified appraised value from last year. Essentially the effective rate is defined to set a rate that would generate the same property taxes overall for the city on existing properties as last year's actual property tax rate generated on last year's certified appraisal value. Of course the law is not actually that simple - it is a convoluted and tortuous path from the two appraisal values to the effective rate for this upcoming year.