Marfa

The City Council has set a proposed tax rate, slightly lower than last year’s, and it heard at its Thursday meeting that there would be no way to salvage a grant application to the Texas Water Board intended to fund water/wastewater improvements near Fort D.A. Russell and the East Heights.

According to calculations from the Presidio County tax assessor/collector, the total valuations for Marfa property rose from $354,131,667 last year to $363,810,706 this year. That increase means that to stay at a “no new revenue” property rate, the tax needs to be lowered slightly. 

The Maintenance and Operations (M&O) rate is proposed at .1811920 per $100 property valuation, with the debt rate at .359870 and the total rate at .541800 — slightly down from last year’s rate of .55640. (Note: Adding the M&O and debt rates don’t exactly add up to the final rate, so the city is going back to the tax assessor to find out why.)

In summary, the city will actually lose $16,000 in revenue under this rate, but that reduction is because the city has retired debt and doesn’t have to pay as much on the debt rate. The city will actually have about $28,000 more in M&O funding. The City Council will finalize rates after going through its budget process in August and September for a fiscal year that starts October 1.

Trey Gerfers, acting as a grant coordinator for Texas Water Development Board funding for water/wastewater projects at Fort D.A. Russell and the East Heights in Marfa, came to the meeting bearing bad news, although he was merely reinforcing what was reported at the council’s last meeting. Marfa’s projects, which were funded for planning by the board’s Economically Distressed Area Program, are ineligible for construction funding.

“The ineligibility stems from the interlocal agreement that y’all have with the county that was all part of the EDAP loan.” The EDAP application required that the entities applying for funding own the properties involved, so the city transferred the ownership to the county for the life of the loan, at which point it would return to city ownership. Currently, the county can’t apply for the Water Development Board construction funding because it is not up to date on required annual audits.

Gerfers devised a plan to add up payments already made on the loans to the level that the city’s responsibility was met and then amend the agreement with the county to state that it would be at that point when ownership returned to the city, which then could apply for the grant. The Water Development Board did not signal it was okay with this idea, and with the grant application due Thursday, there was no course left except to leave the Marfa construction projects with an uncertain future.

Gerfers, however, said he thinks the city should still seek to amend its agreement with the county so that the properties would be eligible should new funding opportunities arise.

Other council discussions included:

  • A proposal from Verizon to pay a one-time lifetime lease of the purple and white water tower for mobile phone antennas. The city has still not received specifics on the lease from Verizon, so the item was tabled again.
  • A presentation from Ramon Rodriguez and Marisa Quintanilla, regional services director with the Rio Grande Council of Governments, on a NADBank award for $350,000 to Presidio County for feasibility studies on a new Presidio landfill and other waste management infrastructure. “This is all in relation to a technical assistance grant where it’s going to be analyzing feasibility for various solid waste management projects,” Rodriguez said. “It’s going to implement and benefit both the cities of Marfa and Presidio, and overall, the county.” A matching fund of $35,000 is required, which would be split between the three entities. Rodriguez said they were still looking at how to structure the grant and would return to council seeking approval in the future.