Cooke County Taxes have more than doubled since 2000. They were $5,389,930 in 2000 and went to $11,584,333 in 2007
according to the Cooke County Appraisal District. Has your income doubled in those seven years?
The Cooke County Tax Rate went from $.41950 in 2000 to $.47670 in 2007 according to Cooke CAD. Compare that to
the Denton County tax rate of $.23589. That is less than half the Cooke County Tax Rate. Will businesses cross
the county line if they know their county tax rate will double?
Most of our career politicians on Commissioner's Court like to talk about how they lowered the tax rate in the last three
years. It's true they lowered the tax rate but that is less than half the story. Property taxes are a result of
multiplying the tax rate times the property value. If property values go up more than the rate goes down, it is a tax
increase according to the State of Texas. Don't let the Commissioner's try to fool you.
The rest of the story is Cooke County Property Appraisals went up more than 8% each of the last three years. If
Commissioner's Court hadn't lowered the absolute rate, taxes would have gone up more than 8% each year which would have subjected
them to a rollback election. We all know what would have happened if Cooke County Citizens had had a chance to vote
on a tax increase. That is why they lowered the rate enough to stay under 8%. Often they set the rate so taxes
go up just under 8%, which is about three times the rate of inflation.
We need to stop putting $12,000,000 to $14,000,000 in County Reserves and contingency funds. Cooke County earned
more than $600,000 in interest on all those bank funds last year. Cooke County could get by on half those reserves and
contingency funds, maybe less.
We also need to stop building monuments for the Commissioner's Court to put their names on and focus on better roads
and improving Law Enforcement.
Isn't it time our Commissioner's Court told us the whole truth, not just the part they want us to hear?
