Finance Department

The Finance Department plays a crucial role in the administration of the city's financial operations. It is dedicated to maximizing the City's assets with available resources, minimizing costs, and safeguarding the City’s funds. The City of Ovilla upholds a strong commitment to financial transparency, ensuring taxpayers and voters have access to the information they are entitled to.

The Finance Department supervises, administers, and plans for the City's financial activities. These activities include:

Revenue collections
Accounts payable and purchasing
Budget preparation
Debt management
Financial Reporting
Investments
Payroll
Risk management
Utility billing

Ovilla is located in two counties. The Ellis Appraisal District and the Dallas Central Appraisal District establishes the market value and taxable value for all properties located in Ovilla. Depending on where you are located in Ovilla determines your County.

Dallas Central Appraisal District

Ellis Appraisal District

Property taxes become due when the taxpayer receives the statement, typically around the first of October each year. Normally, January 31 of the following year is the due date without penalties.

Property Tax Code

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

The Texas Constitution and Property Tax Code states that a taxing unit (City) must comply with certain steps in adopting their tax rates. The Truth-in-Taxation Law was passed for two purposes. The first is to make taxpayers aware of tax rate proposals and the second is to allow taxpayers, to limit the tax increase. The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts publishes a guide every year with all the updated laws to make this process easier for Cities to follow. The four major principles of truth-in-taxation is that the property owners have the right to know about increases, the tax unit must publish the No-New Rate (formerly the effective rate) and the Voter Approval Rate (formerly the rollback rate). The taxing unit must publish a special notice and hold one public hearing to receive citizen comments before the taxing unit may adopt their tax rate. Any rate exceeding the De-minimis rate or at the Voter Approval Rate allows the voters to petition for an election.

RATES:

The No-New Rate is the rate that is a calculated rate that would provide the taxing unit with the same amount of revenue it received in the year before on properties taxed in both years. If property values rise, the No-New tax rate will go down. If property values fall with appraisals, then the No-New tax rate goes up. The No-New rate up to the Voter Approval rate is the calculated rate that is the maximum rate allowed by law without voter approval. Effective January 01, 2020, the voter-approval rate capped at 3.5% for cities and counties.

The Voter-Approval Rate is a calculated maximum rate allowed by law without voter approval.

The De Minimis Rate is a tax rate calculation designed to give smaller taxing units, including cities with a population of less than 30,000, some flexibility to budget for extraordinary costs that may not be possible under the three and a half percent voter approval tax rate. The de mininis rate is the sum of a taxing unit's no-new-revenue M & O rate; the rate that when applied to a taxing unit's current total value, will impose an amount of taxes equal to $500,000.

The tax rate is split into two parts. The first part is the maintenance and operation rate or commonly referred to as the M and O rate. This rate is used to fund the day-to-day operations and is unrestricted revenue. This rate is set by Council.

The second part is the debt rate or commonly referred to as the I and S rate. This rate is used to fund any bonds that have been issued by the City. This rate is set by the amount of debt the City currently is paying and is calculated by the Ellis Tax Office.