Bee County commissioners voted last month to charge Beeville Independent School District $1.98 per parcel of property for tax collection services.

The price tag was agreed upon by a two-member committee appointed by the commissioners court and BISD last fall to resolve the dispute over costs of the service.

But BISD does not want to pay the $1.98 per parcel fee, and trustees do not believe it is fair for commissioners to adopt the higher rate without the school board reviewing the committee’s study first.

Trustees called an emergency board meeting on Tuesday to meet with the school district’s attorney via telephone conference to discuss what BISD could do legally to force the county to collect the taxes.

The board returned to open session and voted to authorize the attorney to “seek redress so that BISD’s taxes will be collected.”

Superintendent Dr. John Hardwick Jr. said the emergency meeting was called because BISD has already set its tax rate and taxes have to be collected to pay bills and educate children.

County sets rate

“We agreed that we would accept whatever price the committee set,” Precinct 1 Commissioner Carlos Salazar Jr. reminded county leaders during a recent meeting. “Both of us, the county and BISD, agreed that whatever the two-person committee came up with, whatever they agreed was a fair price, is what we would accept. The committee recommended $1.98; now BISD is going back on its word.”

Three commissioners voted to adopt the $1.98 service charge during their Sept. 28 meeting.

Precinct 2 Commissioner Susan Stasny, Precinct 3 Commissioner Eloy Rodriguez and Precinct 4 Commissioner Ronnie Olivarez voted to raise the fee from $1.50 per parcel to $1.98 per parcel.

Salazar and Bee County Judge David Silva abstained from voting. Salazar said he believed the $1.98 service charge was fair but said he felt like he had to abstain from voting on the issue because he had met with Hardwick earlier in the day and promised him to try to have the item tabled until a later date.

“Dr. Hardwick said he wanted to form another committee,” Salazar explained to the court.

Silva said he abstained from voting on the issue for almost the same reason. He, too, had met with Dr. Hardwick and promised to hold off on the vote until the issue could be studied further.

A fair price

County commissioners have always maintained they only want to make sure the county is getting a fair price for tax collection services.

BISD wants the county to collect its taxes, but trustees have maintained that they want to make sure their taxpayers aren’t being overcharged.

At stake is tens of thousands of dollars.

The county tax assessor-collector’s office collects taxes for all the other local taxing entities as well, including the city of Beeville, the tax increment finance zone, Coastal Bend College, Bee Groundwater Conservation District, Beeville Water Supply District, the fire prevention districts in each region of the county and school districts in Pawnee, Skidmore-Tynan, Pettus and Beeville.

However, commissioners imposed the $1.98 per parcel service fee on BISD only.

“Because that’s who we’re having the dispute with, not the other taxing entities,” Salazar reminded his fellow commissioners. “We only formed this committee because BISD and the county couldn’t agree on the price.”

Attorney contacted

BISD has threatened in the past to take legal action against Bee County over the service charge.

The school district was forced to hire an attorney last spring after the county notified it in May that the county tax assessor-collector would not be able to collect taxes for the school districts unless she collected the rate set by the commissioners court.

Hardwick said the school district could collect its own taxes but would need time to set up an office and hire personnel.

The matter has come up year after year without being resolved to the satisfaction of everyone involved.

The school districts brought up the subject several years ago, saying they thought they were being overcharged.

State lends a hand

Commissioners asked the state comptroller’s office for help.

Representatives from the comptroller’s office came to Bee County to lend a hand. They studied the issue and then provided a formula to commissioners to help them determine how much to charge the taxing entities in the county for tax collection services.

The state comptroller’s formula is based on the number of parcels of property on which tax is collected, the amount of tax revenue generated by the individual taxing entity and other factors.

The comptroller’s report also revealed that the county had overcharged the four school districts and other taxing entities.

After learning of the overcharges, instead of reimbursing the taxing entities, the county charged each taxing entity a reduced fee of $2 per parcel of property for the next three years for the school districts and a reduced rate for all the other taxing jurisdictions.

Negotiations begin

Commissioners were supposed to get together with the representatives from the four school districts in 2007 and come up with a fair rate. But the two sides didn’t meet and commissioners simply continued to charge the school districts the $2 per parcel flat rate fee.

In the spring of 2008 the two sides got together and the school districts agreed to pay a flat rate fee of $1 per parcel.

However, at a meeting in May of that year, county commissioners said they didn’t think the $1 per parcel was fair to county taxpayers.

County Attorney Mike Knight notified commissioners that they were solely responsible for setting the rate for tax collection services — as long as it was based on actual costs — not the other taxing entities and not the tax assessor-collector’s office. If the other taxing entities didn’t like the rate set by the commissioners, they could either negotiate for a lower amount or collect their own taxes, he said.

The commissioners court set a rate of $2 per parcel during the May 12, 2008, meeting. At that rate, BISD would have paid the county roughly $26,000 for tax collection services.

Shortly afterward, BISD trustees agreed to contract directly with the tax assessor-collector’s office for $1 per parcel. Under that resolution, BISD would have paid the county about $13,000.

Commissioners decided later to rescind the $2 flat rate and instead charge the tax entities a fee based on the state comptroller’s formula.

Under the state comptroller’s formula, BISD paid about $34,000 for tax collection services.

The county rescinded that rate a short time later and imposed a flat rate fee of $1.50 in hopes that it would keep BISD from taking legal action against the county.

At that $1.50 per parcel rate, BISD will pay about $19,000.

Committee appointed

Afterward, both sides agreed to appoint one person each to a committee to study the problem and come up with a binding solution.

That committee presented its study to commissioners last month and commissioners tabled taking action on their recommendation until last month.

But BISD trustees say they never saw the final fee study before commissioners adopted the committee’s finding.

“I don’t think anybody on this board ever saw the worksheet until a week ago,” Trustee Tom Beasley said.

Trustee Viola Salazar said she wanted to make sure that the committee’s hardwork was not overlooked, but Trustee Velma Elizalde said she also thought it important that the board understand exactly how the committee reached its conclusions.

Beasley said he didn’t think it was right for the county to demand the school district pay thousands of more dollars for tax collection services now that the school district has already set its tax rate.

“Every taxing entity impacted by the study has already adopted their budgets and set their tax rates,” he reminded the board.