Directors of the Beeville Water Supply District voted Thursday evening to set the district’s property tax rate at $0.17611 per $100 of assessed evaluation.

The rate actually is slightly lower than the district’s effective rate, as computed by Bee County Tax Assessor-Collector Andrea Gibbud. That rate was reported to be $0.17988 per $100.

The board could have set the effective rate without holding public hearings. The effective rate is the rate that would have brought in the same level of revenue the district collected last year.

However, City Manager Ford Patton and City Finance Director Robert Aguilar explained the board was required to set a rate that would allow it to pay off its bond debt and that figure came to the $0.17611 per $100.

Patton said the district’s bond indebtedness will be paid off in about 18 months.

The board could have set a rate higher than the effective rate but Patton explained that a higher rate would not be necessary this year.

Also, it was too late to hold the public hearings required to establish a tax rate higher than the effective rate.

Board members took that action after swearing in its newest member, Place 1 board member Bill Grigsby, and one of its longest-serving members, place 2 board member Clyde Lacy.

Both men ran unopposed for their offices in May but this was the first meeting the BWSD board has held since that election.

The board then elected its current president, Jim Crumrine, to another term and re-elected Bill Stockton as its vice president.

Before adjourning, the board took care of some routine business items, like accepting tax rate calculations, accepting the tax roll and approving an engagement letter from Virgil Crawford of Crawford and Company to conduct the district’s 2007-08 fiscal year audit.

The board also approved its budget for the coming year and heard reports from Patton on projects to be funded by the city’s recent sale of $2 million in certificates of obligation.