City of La Villa approves property tax increase
Property owners in La Villa will be seeing an increase in their property taxes.
Over 2,200 people call La Villa home and the over 450 homeowners, like Belinda De La Cruz, are not happy about seeing an increase in their property taxes next year.
"It's sad, to tell you the truth, because some of us are living paycheck to paycheck. It's hard on us already with the increase in our daily expenses," De La Cruz said.
De La Cruz has lived in her home for over 19 years. She's worried how a recent tax rate increase will affect her.
Last week, La Villa city officials approved a two cent increase to the tax rate.
They say the average home value is about $100,000. With the two cent increase in the tax rate, homeowners will be paying about $26 more. But some still say that is going to be an extra stain in their wallets.
La Villa City Administrator Antonio Barco says the city needed to raise the tax rate. If they left it the same, the city would have lost thousands of dollars in revenue.
Barco says the loss in revenue is because the city decreased in property tax value.
"The city of La Villa we went down in value by $3 million. That adds up to about $24,000 in revenue the city would lose if we don't increase the rate by 2.64 cents," Barco said.
Barco says the increase is needed to simply make ends meet with a balanced budget.
He says the money is going towards the general operation of the city.