By WCN Staff
Wilson County News

SAN ANTONIO — The river authority’s board last week set a property-tax rate of 1.6425 cents per $100 valuation to help fund a major push in flood and drainage control and environmental, water-quality, and recreational projects in Bexar, Wilson, Karnes, and Goliad counties.

The San Antonio River Authority’s tax rate takes effect in October in the four-county river basin, officials said.

During its June 19 meeting, SARA’s board of directors voted 9 to 1, with one abstention and one absence, to set the tax rate.

Since 1981, SARA’s board had set the "operations and maintenance" tax rate at zero in favor of relying on other sources of revenue. By state law, the tax rate’s limit is 2 cents.

Applied to $100,000 in appraised property, the new 1.6425-cent rate will cost a taxpayer $16.42 a year.

The river authority has "demonstrated its stewardship to constituents by declining to collect tax monies in those years when board members believed it did not need to do so," board Chairman H.B. Ruckman III, of Karnes County, said in a statement after the meeting.

"But the increasing demands for water-related programs and projects that do not have alternative funding sources require SARA to have its own revenue source from the citizens who will benefit," he said.

Ruckman voted for the new tax rate, while Karnes County’s other SARA representative, Truett Hunt, voted against it.

From Wilson County, Director JC Turner of Floresville voted for the tax rate, while Director Al Kollodziej Jr., of Poth, abstained from the vote.

The property tax is projected to generate $8.2 million, mostly in Bexar County, during its first year, officials said.

Several months ago, the O and M tax was proposed as a source of funding for an ambitious, five-year program of expanded services by the authority, with emphasis on flood control (Feb. 27 Wilson County News).

SARA’s board last month approved a "five-year service and financial plan."

The plan calls for the river authority to partner with a variety of governmental entities, from federal down to municipal, in projects in the basin.

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