If We Don’t Join The Water District
The “don’t join” option (or Option 2) is much easier to explain. Currently there are 1,517 WCID17 customers paying $160.00 per month in Out-of-District Fees (ODF’s). If the petition (May 31, 2026) and election (November 3, 2026) are not successful, the WCID will raise the ODF’s to $300 or more per month effective January 1, 2027.
The WCID will issue Revenue Bonds (25 or 30 year term) to fund the construction phases. ODF’s at $300 or more per month will pay back the bonds and interest to the bond holders in 25 or 30 years.
Unlike the property taxes (Join the District, Option 1), which will end when the construction is complete and all bonds+interest to bond holders are paid off, the ODF’s will continue into perpetuity to fund future waterline replacements. They may drop below $300/mo slightly, per prior statements from the WCID.
So, under this option, all 1,517 WCID water customers will pay $90,000 over twenty-five years.
Note that $300/mo x 12 months x 1,517 customers x 25 years equals $136,530,000. $320/mo equals $145,632,000. Repayment of bonds plus interest to bond holders would be funded by out-of-district fees.
It is important to note that under Option 2 only WCID customers will pay the ODF’s. Owners of unimproved lots will get a free pass and contribute ZERO dollars to the waterline replacements. That is, of course, unless they sell or develop their property and a water meter is added.
Yes, unimproved lot owners are incentivized not to join the district. No water meter, no ODF’s. No join, no taxes. No contribution to the waterline improvements.
Yes, property owners whose properties are valued over $800,000 will be paying more in property taxes than they would under the Option 2. They also are not incentivized to JOIN the district. They represent about 8.4% of the total number of properties, but about 24% of the value of properties in Apache Shores.
No scenario is equitable for all parties, but the JOIN option is the lesser cost option for the most number of people.
if we do join the water district
Option 1 - Joining the District, is a little trickier and more involved explanation.
In joining the District through the petition and election process (explained elsewhere), the WCID will begin to levy property taxes beginning in the 2028 tax year (for 2027 taxes).
The WCID has stated that a tax rate of $0.40 per hundred dollars of net assessed value will be sufficient to pay back the bonds ($77,285,000 par value) plus interest to the bond holders, bond term of 25 years, at a rate of 4.5%.
See detailed explanation from Jason Homan, CEO and General Manager of WCID17 below. Also click here.
In addition, there will be an O&M tax rate of $0.056 per hundred dollars of net assessed value.
Sounds like a great deal - $56/year per $100k in property value. But this aspect of joining the district has HUGE (positive) implications for Apache Shores. That is because this tax is paid by EVERY property owner within all of WCID17’s defined service areas. Once Apache joins there will be approximately 14,874 property owners paying this O&M portion of the property tax.
This O&M tax funds the day-to-day and year-to-year operations and maintenance and repairs and small construction projects - district-wide. A large portion of this tax revenue is also set aside in a capital improvements account to fund future waterline replacements in both Apache Shores and all of the other defined areas that WCID17 serves. In essence, this tax is the other side of the coin of the out of district fees.
The importance of this O&M tax cannot be overstated.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The bonds will be issued in 5 tranches to match the 5 construction phases approximately 2 years apart, over 10-12 years. The tax rate (again, an estimate at this point) will start out low in the early years, then ramp up as the outstanding bond balance increases, level out in the middle years (at $0.40/100 or whatever the maximum allowable rate is on the ballot), and then begin to decrease as all of the bonds near retirement aka being paid off.
There are around 1,900 properties in Apache valued less than $800,000. That’s 91.5% of property owners who will pay less out-of-pocket under the JOIN option.
Detailed explanation of the proposed/estimated maximum tax rate of $0.40/100 from Jason Homan, CEO and General Manager of WCID17:
Greg,
Thanks for reaching out. Yes, I am aware that some of the residents have questions and concerns about the potential tax rate for Apache Shores should the area join the District. We have seen some of what has been posted on FB and I think there have been some misunderstandings concerning the status.
Despite what some may have put out to the community the District has never published any final numbers about any of this. We have put out estimates based on the information available at that time. Final numbers will not be available until the petition is completed (or we all decide it is not likely to be completed). Once that is determined the Board will instruct our Engineers to produce the final Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for Apache Shores. That will provide all of the final pricing for all of the construction work. Once that is complete the Board will instruct the District’s tax analyst to produce a tax plan for the area that takes the CIP into account. When this is completed it will provide the data that will be in the ballot language that everyone will vote on.
I recognize that everyone wants the final numbers asap so they can make a good decision but I do have to ask everyone to understand that the District can’t possible provide this now. There are just too many moving pieces here to produce a final number for people when the date that this may all happen is completely undetermined. Final numbers will come once we have a timeline that is definite, otherwise with all of these moving parts (total bond amount, Assessed Value in Apache, Interest Rate, timeline for bond sales, reducing the contingency to 10% etc) the potential bond amount and associated tax can skew significantly.
This issue is exactly what seems to be causing the confusion online as people are attempting to estimate the necessary tax rate but are all using differing inputs. The tax rate was designed two years ago as an estimate for the community to understand how this process could work. It was accurate given the information available at the time. It was set up to build out over time, meaning it started at 31 cents and built to 40 cents over the first three years. This allowed enough additional Assessed Value (AV) to develop (meaning existing homes that got rehabbed and new homes being built) so that the tax rate would stabilize at 40 cents. Beyond 2030 (once stable) no further development was assumed by the analyst to ensure their projections were conservative.
This was based on the typical AV growth rates and land development rates they see and was only modeled until 2030 because at that point the tax rate would have been stable at $.40. No further increases were assumed although historically the area is likely to see somewhere between 3-5% of continued AV growth just from land valuation increase. This was left out to be conservative but had it been included it would have resulted in a falling tax rate year over year as the AV increases. This can be most easily seen by examining the Steiner Ranch Tax Rate over time (attached for your reference) (image to the left). All of this was based on the 2023 taxable AV provided by TCAD.
Concerning the Tax rate and AV, there are two factors at play here that have caused people online to be concerned that the District’s analysis needs to be adjusted.
There were significant tax protests in 2024/2025 that have lowered the AV in Apache Shores by nearly $40MM.
From 2024 to now, the typical AV increase from development has not occurred in Apache Shores at the same rate it has throughout the remainder of our District. When the analysis was put together in 2024 there were 1,019 parcels in AS with a taxable AV less than $300,000 (average was $149,171). The tax rate analyst assumed a rate of development on these lots that would have raised AV to the point where the tax rate would have been stable over the life of the bond. These predicted increases did not materialize at the rate anticipated in Apache Shores.
Obviously neither of these two factors were anticipated and we now have the analyst reworking their numbers with a more conservative approach to additional assessed value being added to the area. That being said, I do want to be sure that everyone understands that as we have been discussing from the onset, it will be impossible for the District to provide a final tax rate until the petition is completed and accepted by our Board. That is why the tax rate and specifically the total bond amount are what Apache will be voting on (assuming the petition is completed). Between the 30% engineer’s contingency and the anticipated savings from coordinating with the County on reducing the costs for road restoration, we feel confident that the final tax rate will be at or near the 40 cent rate that has been discussed.
This does not include the possibility of getting low interest loans or grants through the Water Development Board which is something we will pursue each year and will only bring the total bond and tax rate down further. The final numbers will be published in the election Ballot announcement but will also be published by WCID 17 to the residents of Apache Shores directly so they can decide if this is something they want to support.
This is precisely why we want everyone to understand, that the petition is exactly that – a petition. The final numbers will be voted on by the Apache Shores residents and that is when people will be making the actual decision to approve the bond amount and a tax rate or not.
I realize this is a lot of information and we may want to make this a specific topic of conversation at the next town hall. That way people can hear from us how this process works and get whatever questions they may have answered.
Thanks,
Jason
