The choices faced by Rockdale residents in getting a new health care facility—a first-rate clinic affiliated with St. Joseph’s in Bryan—just got real.
On Monday the Rockdale Hospital Board proposed a 16.9-cent property tax to fund the new clinic. Somewhat ironically, the very next day the City of Rockdale proposed a 3.81-cent tax hike. Combined, that’s a 20.71-cent property tax increase for Rockdale city residents on top of some pretty hefty valuation increases this spring. Again.
The hospital district’s tax increase is not set in stone. There’s an alternative and district board members have said they prefer it. But if the alternative happens it’s going to take some effort by the community. Here’s the situation as plainly as we can state it:
We are getting a new clinic. It’s going to happen. See page 1A. In order to fund that new clinic tax money will have to be used. There are two possibilities and they are very different in their impacts on this town’s taxpayers.
One is that the hospital district somehow gets back the half-cent sales tax it once received to support what was once Richards Memorial Hospital.
That’s a tax which is already being collected. It has been going to the Rockdale Municipal Development District (MDD) since 2010.
Impact on your local property taxes: Zero.
The other tax which could come into play is a property tax which the hospital district once levied. It has been at zero for the past 12 years.
But a tax rate being at zero does not mean that tax has gone away. Attorneys can, and almost certainly will, argue about exactly what that means.
But the bottom line is this. The hospital district will seek to institute this property tax if it does not get that sales tax.
Impact on your local property taxes: 16.9 cents.
Dick Burns, Rockdale Hospital Board president, has not been shy expressing what he thinks needs to happen. “People are going to have to choose what they think is more important,” he said.
That means, basically, choosing between having an MDD and having a new property tax.
To make the sales tax switch happen, instead of the property tax, Burns says a group needs to get signatures on a petition and ask the MDD to formally relinquish the sales tax.
Will that cripple the MDD financially? Almost certainly, in fact it has almost $900,000 in debt which must be paid off. And it says it needs around 2-1/2 years to retire that debt.
If there’s a petition, the hospital board believes there could be an election called to let the voters decide where the sales tax should go, the MDD or the hospital district.
Attorneys will have their say on that, you can bet. They always do.
It’s one of those situations where two good things are pitted against each other, kind of like when redistricting leaves two honest and conscientious office holders forced to seek the same position.
Maybe there’s some miraculous solution that nobody sees. If there is, it better happen quickly. The hospital board can, and will, schedule a vote on that tax hike.
Because if nothing, miraculous or otherwise, happens, Rockdale residents are going to see a substantial increase on their property tax bills.
And you, the taxpayers of Rockdale, need to know that. You need to know this too.
What happens, or doesn’t happen, next is essentially up to you.—M.B.
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