Who finances the City of Rockdale?

There is a question in the public finance field on who is going to pay for the cost of government? Should this cost be covered by residents? Or business? Let’s talk about this as it relates to who pays for services provided by the City of Rockdale.

The most recent property tax roll has the city’s net taxable value at $367 million. Of this amount, 67% is residential value – meaning that homeowners and renters are covering 67% of the city’s property tax revenue.

Other cities will have a different percentage. I worked in a city where about 65% of the net taxable value was industrial value – the exact opposite of Rockdale.

There is no right or wrong percentage here, but let’s say that we don’t want this number out of balance. Approaching 70% either way is an unbalanced property tax roll.

In Rockdale’s case, residential properties are paying an overburdened share of the cost of city services. There are a couple of ways to provide some relief.

One is to add industrial or commercial value to the tax roll so that the cost burden is shifted onto someone else.

Or the city can start to earn more revenue from non-property tax sources, such as sales tax.

The new industrial park we are working on is but one step to grow the local economy in such a way that can benefit everyone.

We are going to do great things in Rockdale, Texas!