Burnet County locks in 2026-27 tax rate
The Burnet County Courthouse. File photo
The Burnet County Commissioners Court approved its new tax rate for the 2026-27 fiscal year, raising the tax rate by 6.56 percent to fund a mostly flat budget with the addition of 4-percent raises for county staff and elected officials, and funding for rising insurance costs. The budget also supports a large investment in county transportation infrastructure.
The new tax rate was approved on Tuesday, Sept. 22, during a meeting of the Commissioners Court. This approval came after the county had already approved its FY 2026-27 budget on Sept. 8.
The new FY 2026-27 tax rate is $0.3541 per $100 property valuation, up by about 2.18 cents from the FY 2025-26 rate of $0.3323.
According to the county’s taxpayer impact statement, this rate change would result in an additional $62.80 in annual tax payments, increasing last year’s $1,297.80 tax bill for a median-valued home in Burnet County (which lies at $384,243 in FY 2026-27) to $1,360.60.
This new tax rate will fund a budget that is largely similar to the FY 2025-26 budget. The budgeted revenues for the 2026-27 fiscal year are about $43.8 million, which is around an 8.4 percent increase from the 2025-26 fiscal year’s revenues of $40.4 million.
According to Burnet County Judge Bryan Wilson, much of the new revenue will go toward 4-percent raises for all county employees and elected officials, along with paying for an increase in insurance costs. The county has over 380 budgeted positions.
While county employees also received 2.7-percent raises last year, the Commissioners Court cut raises for elected officials from the FY 2025-26 budget to make room for new sheriff’s deputies. This year, the officials and all employees will receive the same 4-percent raise.
The 2026-27 budget has about $50.34 million in expenditures, which is well over the $43.8 million in projected revenue. But, that gap will be filled with about $6.5 million from the county’s fund balance, which will almost exclusively be used for local road and bridge projects.
See the adopted budget for yourself here: Burnet County Budget Fiscal Year 2027
The court just raised the county tax rate 6.56% while the median homestead they used in their own notice dropped from $390,553 to $384,243. Median household income in this county is still under $80,000.
They could have saved well over a million dollars by not handing every employee and every elected official a 4% COLA. Last year they at least cut the elected-official raise to hire deputies. This year everybody eats.
Home values went down. Regular people did not get a 4% raise. Using fund balance for roads does not change the fact that they chose a pay bump over holding the line. That is tone-deaf & unconscionable, IMHO.