What we know
The city established the Hunters Crossing PID in 2001 to fund certain public improvement projects—such as roads, parks, landscaping and utilities—through capital assessments as well as operations and maintenance assessments on property owners.
“The city acts, for a lack of a better term, as a co-signer, because the money is borrowed on our faith and good credit, knowing that we’re going to collect assessments that are due to pay off this particular PID,” Bastrop City Manager Sylvia Carrillo-Trevino said during the meeting.
What the experts say
The Hunters Crossing PID marked the first of its kind in Texas, according to a city document.
“The capital component does exactly what it says. It borrows money to put the infrastructure in place,” Carrillo-Trevino said. “This PID also has an operations and maintenance portion that really should belong to the [homeowners association], but instead the property owners are paying it.”
The operations and maintenance assessments, she highlighted, are capped at $5 million.
“Up until my arrival, we were acting as if it was the goal to get to that ceiling, when that is not the case,” Carrillo-Trevino said.
The options
Place 3 council member Kevin Plunkett noted that Bastrop City Council previously expressed interest in dissolving the Hunters Crossing PID.
“Doing away with this PID is not a possibility, because there is [operations and maintenance] debt and capital debt,” Carrillo-Trevino said. “We could put it to a vote. The property owners are going to say, ‘Great, I don’t have an assessment anymore. Do away with it.' But then that debt is spread among 14,000 residents.”
Although Place 2 council member Cynthia Meyer questioned if the item could be tabled, Carrillo-Trevino emphasized that action was needed to meet the county tax assessor-collector’s deadline for collections.
“If we miss the deadline, it won’t get on her mail-out [list] to collect, which then becomes problematic to us, because we don’t have enough money to pay the debt,” Carrillo-Trevino said. “That has to be paid at some point.”
Approximately $2.8 million in capital assessments remains unpaid after the fiscal year 2024-25 installment, according to a city document.
Also of note
Bastrop City Council will discuss legal aspects about the Hunters Crossing PID, as well as any potential dissolution or amendments, during an executive session during their next regular meeting Aug. 12
