County renews tax abatement policy through 2025

Killeen Daily Herald
BY SHANE MONACO | TELEGRAM STAFF
November 13, 2023

Amid Bell County’s recent authorization of tax abatements for local solar projects, the policy that allows those abatements was renewed by the county Monday.

The policy, which needs to be renewed every couple of years, was approved without any changes at Monday’s regular meeting. The approval for the policy’s renewal was unanimous despite recent disagreement by Commissioners about what projects deserve the abatements.

County Judge David Blackburn said the current policy is used as a framework and helps inform those seeking tax abatements from the county.

“This policy that we have been working under is provided to every applicant that comes to us seeking any type of agreement,” Blackburn said.

Officials said the policy allows the county to enter into various tax abatement agreements including payment in lieu of taxes agreements, which recently have been approved for local solar farm projects.

Commissioner Russell Schneider opposed one such agreement near Killeen last week, while pointing out that these agreements don’t necessarily stop the projects that they help.

“Can we disallow them to be there? No,” Schneider said. “But we don’t have to help them. Just that little bit may be enough, I am not sure. If not, then it is not.”

The county’s current tax abatement policy, officials said, has been in place since 2009, with some revisions since then.

The newly adopted policy is now expected to expire on Nov. 15, 2025, if no changes are made and a new version of the policy is adopted.

Blackburn said the policy helps to outline exactly what kind of projects can apply for tax abatements as well as how much they can receive.

“One of the key elements for the abatement policy is the general eligibility criteria section,” Blackburn said. “The umbrella criteria for us to consider establishing a reinvestment zone or entering into an agreement is the project is expected to produce a meaningful impact to the county and its economy.”

Blackburn pointed out that the county’s policy does have a requirement that ties the abatement to the amount of local investment. He said the minimum abatement is 25% while the maximum is 100%.

As an example, Blackburn said that a 30% tax abatement for a property would require at least a $400,000 investment or at least 31 jobs.

While the tax abatement can be for projects that hit either the investment amount or job creation goal, Blackburn said companies mainly focus on the monetary investment goal.

Some Commissioners at the meeting pointed out that the amount of monetary investment for the abatements seemed low compared to what the county gave up.

“You can’t hardly buy a house for $400,000 in Bell County anymore so it doesn’t seem like that significant of an investment to get a tax abatement,” Commissioner Bobby Whitson said.

While the policy was passed by the court, Commissioners did discuss the possibility of changing how much of an investment would be required for an abatement. Schneider pointed out that he would like to see more of an emphasis on the creation of more permanent jobs, not just the temporary construction jobs that solar farms provide.

Blackburn said he was fine to reconsider elements of the policy but first wanted to get this version in place before coming back to it.

The rush to put in place the updated policy is mainly due to the fact that it would have expired later this week.

“My suggestion on the plan to do that is to talk to our local economic development corporations and see what kind of updated information they have,” Blackburn said. “Then, we can reflect that.”