Nacogdoches council adopts FY2025–26 budget, carries four record votes on tax apportionments

The Nacogdoches City Council adopted an ordinance approving the city’s fiscal year 2025–26 budget on Sept. 16 and carried four statutorily required record votes related to the city’s proposed 2025 tax rate.

Todd Cimino, interim director of finance, told the council the public hearing was required "if the proposed tax rate exceeds the lower of the no-new-revenue rate or the voter approval rate," and reviewed slides comparing the current and proposed rates, average homestead values and levy amounts. "So tonight's finally the time to adopt a budget," Cimino said before council took its formal vote.

An unidentified council member moved to approve the ordinance adopting the annual budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2025, and ending Sept. 30, 2026; the motion was seconded and the council carried the measure by unanimous record vote. The council then proceeded with four separate record votes required by state law on the tax-rate ordinance. According to the meeting transcript, the presiding official said, "I move that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of tax rate of points 7 5 9 6 per 100, which is effectively a 12.4% increase in the tax rate." That motion passed by record vote.

Council then approved separate record votes to apportion the maintenance-and-operations component to the general fund and to apportion 0.08413 of the tax rate to the debt-service fund, each carried by unanimous record vote. The final record vote ratified that the budget will "raise more property tax revenue than last year's budget," as read into the record by the presiding official, and that motion also passed unanimously.

The meeting transcript contains inconsistent numeric language about the tax rate: earlier the ordinance was read as setting the rate "at a rate of 50.57596 per $100 valuation" while council motions later referenced "points 7 5 9 6 per 100." The precise numeric tax rate is unclear in the audio transcript and packet text provided at the meeting; the council’s record votes and the motion language are recorded in the meeting minutes. The council did not state any changes to the budget adoption itself; Cimino said statutory and charter requirements had been met and that the council had held prior workshops and hearings.

The ordinance adopting the budget takes effect as provided in the ordinance language. The council’s actions included a record vote roll call for the budget and for each of the four tax-rate motions.