RHD vote

This is going to be a confusing editorial to read and it wasn’t a bowl of Blue Bell cookies-and-cream to write either.

Voters within the Rockdale Independent School District will go to the polls Nov. 3 to decide whether to expand the Rockdale Hospital District from its current boundaries to those of the school district.

Here’s the overall picture. Right now only some voters within the city limits of Rockdale are paying the tax—currently 6.5-cents—which is used in funding the HealthPoint/CHI-St. Joseph’s Clinic on the campus of the former Richards Memorial Hospital.

Others within the Rockdale ISD boundaries are not currently paying that tax.

The key point to keep in mind is that yes-or-no totals will be compiled for each one of those sets of voters. If both groups say “yes,” the boundaries expand. If either votes “no,” it won’t happen and it won’t matter how the other group voted.

Reason for putting the issue before voters is simple. If the tax burden is spread out among all voters in the school district, the tax rate will drop from 6.5 to less than half a cent, according to the RHD.

That will be the tax rate for the entire expanded Rockdale Hospital District, both inside Rockdale and in the remainder of the Rockdale ISD.

RHD directors originally said a 16.9-cent tax rate would be required, but decided last year to use dwindling reserves to impose the lower rate for two years. 2020-2021 is the second of those years.

That was the easy to understand part. Here comes the complex.

Some people in the current Rockdale city limits are now outside the hospital district and their votes Nov. 3 will be counted with the “out-of-town-butin-the-school-district” group.

Why? When the hospital district was created by voters, overwhelmingly, in 1994 its boundaries were the 1994 city limits of Rockdale.

Rockdale has grown by annexation several times since, taking in such areas as Walmart, the intermediate school, part of Bushdale Road and more.

But the hospital district did not expand. Its boundaries remain to this day those 1994 lines.

So, what about the folks who live between the 1994 and 2020 city limits. They have not been paying hospital district taxes. They, of course, have been paying city taxes.

As if that weren’t confusing enough there will actually be two propositions about the expansion, one will ask if you favor expanding the district and the other asking if you favor adding the district’s outstanding debts and taxes to the new area, assuming it is annexed to the district.

Both those propositions have to pass or nothing will change.

Also, both sections of voters will have to vote “yes” on both propositions or nothing will change and Rockdale residents (parts of them anyway) will continue to foot the bill.

Here’s the bottom line:

• If you live inside the 1994 city limits of Rockdale—and that’s the huge majority—expanding the district will lower your taxes.

• If you live in the Rockdale ISD outside those 1994 Rockdale city limits, expanding the district will mean you will pay a new tax.

• If you live in areas of Rockdale inside the current city limits, but outside the 1994 city limits, you have not been paying hospital district taxes and expanding the district will mean you will pay a new tax.—M.B.