Cy-Fair's fire district adopted a rate that raises $3.9 million. Its budget is still $3.89 million short.

Harris County Emergency Services District 9 adopted a 4.5 cent tax rate Thursday night. Community Impact’s own preview said that rate would raise $3.9 million more than the no-new-revenue rate. The budget the same board approved the same night carries a projected shortfall of $3.89 million.

Why it matters

ESD 9 funds the Cy-Fair Fire Department across a large piece of northwest Harris County, and residents pay the increase on the bill that arrives this fall. The shortfall the increase was meant to close is almost exactly the size of the increase. That is not a rate increase that fixed a deficit. It is a rate increase and a deficit, adopted in the same meeting.

By the numbers

$0.045 per $100 of valuation, adopted September 24, up from $0.04. A 12.5 percent increase in the rate.
$5.00 per $100,000 of taxable value a year. That is what the half-cent costs, on any house on the roll.
$0.038548, the no-new-revenue rate. The adopted rate sits 16.7 percent above it.
$3.9 million, the added revenue the rate raises against no-new-revenue, per the September 21 preview.
$3.89 million, the projected shortfall in the budget approved the same night.
$8.1 million, the gap identified September 10, against $109.6 million of revenue and $117.8 million of spending.
About $310,000. The $3.9 million raised plus the $3.89 million still short is $7.79 million, so roughly that much of the gap closed some other way. No account says how.
3-1, the vote. Commissioner Jaime Martinez opposed, Commissioner Rob Paiva abstained. Two of five did not vote for it.
49 new full-time positions for Stations 15 and 17, taking the department to 17 stations. Still unpriced.

What the coverage buried

Community Impact’s account of the vote prints this sentence: the rate will “increase a median-valued homestead’s yearly property tax bill by about $1.20 a month compared to the previous tax year.” Yearly and a month sit in the same clause, and no median value is given to anchor either reading. Read as monthly it is $14.40 a year.

The half-cent needs no median. The rate went from 4 cents to 4.5 cents, and half a cent per $100 of taxable value is $5 a year per $100,000. A reader can apply that to the value on their own notice.

One thing is missing from the published account entirely. The September 10 workshop turned on three compensation options, priced at $730,119, $1.5 million and $3 million against a 4.2 percent raise. No account of Thursday says which one the board adopted. That is the largest controllable line in the budget, and the vote that set it is not published.

The other side

The district’s case is real and was made plainly. Commissioner Cameron Dickey put it in one line: “In order to add staff … you have to be able to add expenses.” Two new fire stations in a growing part of the county are a growth cost, and payroll starts before the doors open. The adopted rate is also 45 percent of the $0.10 per $100 cap state law allows an ESD, which is not an agency maxing out its authority.

The answer is the arithmetic. A board that raises $3.9 million and still writes a $3.89 million hole into the budget has chosen both, without publishing the compensation number that would show how hard it tried to avoid the second. The objection arrives from two directions. Homeowners pay a rate 16.7 percent above no-new-revenue. Firefighters watch the raise line priced three ways as the place to find savings.

What to watch

The district’s Notice About 2026 Tax Rates, which by state law carries the no-new-revenue and voter-approval rates certified by the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector. This desk did not locate the 2026 notice on the district’s document center.
The adopted FY 2026-27 budget, which would price the 49 positions, and the minutes of the September 24 special meeting, for the raise vote.
The first quarterly report of FY 2026-27, where a $3.89 million projected shortfall either shrinks or does not.

Bottom line

The district asked for a rate that raises $3.9 million above holding revenue flat, got it 3-1, and adopted a budget still $3.89 million short. The half-cent costs $5 a year per $100,000 of taxable value. The figure that would settle whether this was the smallest increase available is the compensation percentage, and nobody has published it.

Sources

Editorial