At their meeting this week, the Lubbock City Council approved the second reading of an increased property tax rate for the city, making it official. The Council voted five to two to approve the new property tax rate of $0.45617 per $100 valuation, a .91 percent increase, costing the homeowner of a $100,000 dollar house about $10 more annually.
Mayor Tom Martin and District Four Councilman Paul Beane voted against the measure, both citing displeasure over transferring the City’s street light system costs to Lubbock Power and Light.
Beane elaborated about his opposition in saying “I think it eventually will fly in the face of the recommendations of the Electric Utility Board group of men and women, who have successfully brought Lubbock Power and Light back from the brink of destruction, so to speak.”
The new increased rate will go into effect October 1st.
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Mayor Martin also announced the impending creation of a committee that will study the future of Lubbock Power and Light.
The announcement was made in response to the City Council’s approval to shuffle street light costs to the municipal utility.
Wednesday, the Electric Utility Board voted to recommend the council shelve the plans to permanently relegate street light costs to the utility, but rather have Lubbock Power and Light make a single three million dollar payment to the city. They also requested that the mayor create the committee to recommend permanent solutions to the financial and governance issues of LP&L.
In November 2004, just over 82 percent of voters approved an addition to the City Charter, which somewhat isolates the city utility from the city council.
Martin said “today in Lubbock Texas, we have the lowest electric rates in the State of Texas. Nobody ever reports that, because that’s good news, we only report bad news in this society, but we have the lowest electric rates, and that’s a benefit for everybody in this community that uses electricity…We do not want to end up like our neighbors three hundred miles to the east in Dallas that have electric rates three times what they are in Lubbock, Texas.”
Martin indicated that he would announce who he plans to appoint to the new committee in the near future.
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The Council also approved financing up to ninety million dollars to pay for their purchase of Xcel Energy.
The measure would pay twenty million dollars as a down payment, and finance the rest. The ordinance was approved six to one, Councilman Paul Beane dissenting.
Beane suggested using the recommendation of the Electric Utility Board to pay fifty million dollars up front, and finance the rest of the 110 million dollar estimated final price.
At the last Council meeting, the group approved using around nine million dollars of funds from old revenue bonds, in addition to the new revenue bonds that were approved Thursday.
KFYO Local News 