Many Westlake property owners will get a decrease in their 2025 municipal taxes if planned millage rate reductions hold up during upcoming budget hearings.
At the second workshop of the budget season on Tuesday, Aug. 6, the Westlake City Council instructed City Manager Kenneth Cassel to cut the property tax rate from 4.95 to 4.70 mills.
The reduction would result in a $180 savings for the average owner of a property valued at $600,000 for tax purposes, according to Cassel. The number does not include taxes from other government entities, and the amount an individual homeowner actually will pay also can be affected by increased property values.
To achieve the reduction, council members agreed to trim staff plans to add $1,441,500 to the city’s reserves. Instead, the new budget would add $1 million to the $4 million already in place. The reserves are held in case of an emergency, such as a hurricane, and for use when state, federal or other grants require up-front matching dollars.
“I love the idea,” said Mayor JohnPaul O’Connor, who had been pushing for a rate reduction for the third year in a row. “I am so happy and proud to be making a significant cut while being fiscally responsible.”
A reduction to 4.90 mills had been on the table, but Cassel said that “at the direction of the council, we looked at the impact that slowing the growth of reserves would have. We saw that we could slow down and not be hurt.”
“This is a great job by staff,” O’Connor said.
Despite the proposed reduction, most Westlake property owners will be writing larger checks to pay for services under the assessment agreement created with the Seminole Improvement District (SID) when the city came into being in 2016. SID supplies most of the community’s infrastructure, including roads and drainage.
The average Westlake homeowner living on a quarter-acre lot will see a 30 to 37 percent increase — $262 to $294 — in their SID assessment, according to data supplied by the district. That will increase the average assessment from $829 to $1,107.
SID supervisors will hold their next meeting Monday, Aug. 19 and their budget hearing Monday, Sept. 9, both at 4 p.m. at Westlake’s municipal offices at 4001 Seminole Pratt Whitney Road.
“I understand there’s some consternation out there on the part of some residents,” said Cassel, who also manages SID.
In a letter posted to SID’s web site at www.seminoleimprovementdistrict.com, the district administration wrote that the assessments are for everyone — including developers and commercial businesses — and is billed based on the level of services being used by the property owner.
“The individual or organization that owns the property pays the assessment, even if they do not have any structure on the property. For example, the owner of the property designated General Office will pay $887,565.62 this year. The owner of the property designated Retail will pay $392,226.64. The owner of the Taco Bell site will pay $29,414 and so on,” the letter explained.
SID’s 2025 budget is projected to increase from $6 million to $7 million, that’s $2.7 million less than anticipated in 2016. The $1 million increase would include $430,000 in capital improvements — $300,000 in park improvements and $130,000 in road and right-of-way repairs — and repayment of $287,000 for a drainage culvert on Seminole Pratt Whitney Road.
The letter explained that the original operations and maintenance methodology of 2016 that was adopted by SID projected build-out in 2036, with an operations and maintenance budget of approximately $21.7 million based on 4,546 single family residences and 2.2 million square feet of non-residential buildings.
The assessment rates in the projected 2036 buildout were between $2,593 and $3,807 depending on the single-family property size, the letter continued. Currently, there are 3,825 single-family parcels platted (84.1 percent), while roads, pathways, landscaping and lakes are approximately 90 percent constructed.
The SID supervisors and administration “have been very conservative in their approach to operations and management of the district,” Cassel said. “As the city continues to build out in terms of both commercial and residential property, these rates will stabilize, but they will not go down.”
Meanwhile, City of Westlake officials will hold their first public budget hearing Tuesday, Sept. 3 at 6 p.m. at the Lodge at Westlake Adventure Park, located at 5490 Kingfisher Blvd.
The 2025 fiscal year begins Oct. 1 for both the city and the district.
