Fairfield Hospital District Board members will gather for a Special Called Meeting this Thursday, December 12, 2019 to review and take action on a Citizens Petition requesting a Tax Rate Rollback Election.
The thirty-four page petition, containing 691 signatures, was presented to John Yeary, CEO of Freestone Medical Center, on Tuesday of last week.
Click here to access the petition with signatures (birth dates have been redacted).
A quick perusal of the names shows 16.6% of petition signatures from residents of Navarro County, with a Streetman address.
A portion of our adjoining county to the north lies within the boundaries of Fairfield Hospital District.
“It appears that there are enough signatures to force the call for an election,” said Yeary, clarifying that this was a preliminary statement, as the petition has not been officially considered, or acted upon, by the Hospital Board.
Signatures from ten percent of registered voters (a total of 605) in the Fairfield Hospital District were required for such a petition to trigger a Special Election to reduce the tax rate.
Twenty-two of the signatures in this petition were invalidated, according to Yeary.
Reasons for invalidation include:
–Not a registered voter of the hospital district
–Submitted an affidavit requesting removal from the petition
–Name was illegible and could not be verified
This leaves a total of six hundred sixty-nine valid signatures on the petition, according to preliminary reports.
Back in May, voters went to the polls in a Special Election to approve raising the tax rate cap for Fairfield Hospital District from .12 cents to .25 cents, which was the current average for hospital districts in the State of Texas.
It was the first such increase in the tax rate cap in over thirty years in Fairfield, since the hospital district was first created in 1987.
Subsequently, on September 5th, the FHD board approved setting a tax rate of 21.5 cents per $100 property value for the 2019-2020 Fiscal Year.
Although the adopted rate was 3.5 cents lower than the tax rate cap approved earlier by voters, it did exceed the 13.7 cents rollback tax rate.
Any time a taxing entity adopts a tax rate that exceeds the rollback rate, the law allows for a petition by citizens for a reduction, which is exactly what has happened with this petition.
As a result citizens will, once again, be asked to go to the polls to approved funds for their local hospital.
Members of the FHD Board are expected to officially validate the petition and call for a Special Election during their meeting on Thursday. Such an election will likely be held in conjunction with City and School Elections in May of 2020.
