Summer is drawing to a close on the calendar but not our temperatures. I hope everyone continues to take precautions against the heat. If you need help, please do not hesitate to contact our town staff. I also want to remind everyone as we are back to another school year, ensure the kids are cautious when riding their scooters to school. A reminder for parents that the safety flyers concerning E-Bikes are available at town hall.
Your town council has closed the budget for this year and approved next fiscal year’s budget. We will close out this year with surplus funds which we will place in investment profiles for future major projects. Examples of the major projects we plan for are road repair and drainage system repair.
The new budget starts Oct. 1. Our priority continues to be maintaining under revenue spending-which means we won’t be spending more than we receive in taxes. I know that may seem to be an obvious standard to hold, but we see deficit spending occurring at all levels of government. The financial team at town hall has reviewed the necessary spending for the year and we have determined we can accomplish a TAX RATE DECREASE. Your property tax rate will go down from $0.265990 to $0.24400 per $100 of value. That is an average of an 8.27% decrease in your tax rate. Three items lead to this tax rate reduction, increase in total houses, average home value increase year over year and controlling spending by town leadership.
I do want to explain a recent mailing you might have received as a town email. It was titled Notice of Public Hearing on Tax Increase. To explain this, even though we have planned and budgeted for an average 8.27% tax rate cut for next year, the Town will receive more revenue than last year. More homes and values of our homes increasing means we will be receiving slightly more dollars in FY26-27 than FY25-26. The State of Texas requires us to send a public notice out to this effect. So, to be clear to everyone, your individual tax rate will be decreasing, but having more homes each year in Copper Canyon helps keep your tax rate down.
As I like to say, we are a country residential town. The majority of our town is composed of one acre, two acre and greater properties. I saw and your town council agreed that as we develop ranch land to houses it is the town’s responsibility to ensure we always keep our country roots in mind. After all, that is why we love Copper Canyon. Over the last several months your council has passed two critical ordinances with a third ready to move forward very soon. The first of two deal with construction containers on properties and second is protecting our trees through our new tree ordinance. The final ordinance will be one to ensure we provide open space for homeowners of future developments. These ordinances are all directed to keep your choice of country residential living available.
Speaking of ordinances, for everyone looking for land development or remodeling, please contact Town Hall to ensure proper permitting is accomplished. We have updated our permit application process to ensure proper review is accomplished before starting your projects. The updated permit application is not to limit anyone for developing their property but is to ensure we never lose our Copper Canyon lifestyle. So bottom line is: check-in with Town Hall before you start any work that may permanently change the landscape of the neighborhood.
