Issue # 25: Football is Back!; Rec Center Challenges; Property Tax Bill Taking Shape
Published 16 days ago • 5 min read
Issue #26
August 29, 2025
Football is Back!
Today the Smithville Tigers football team will host Rockdale for their season opener at Tiger Stadium at 7:30 p.m. You can grab your tickets here, and don’t forget about the district’s new clear bag policy for all events this year.
Before you go, please check out our first feature story of the season. We sat down with Head Coach Layne Neumann on Monday and got the inside scoop on the offseason changes he made, new traditions he started, and why he chose GRIT as the athletic department brand for this school year.
We will be covering the game tonight. Please follow us on X for score updates at each quarter and a game recap on our website later tonight.
Rec Center Challenges
In June Council Member Cathy Meek delivered a report to the City Council about the Rec Center, which painted a picture of a facility struggling with high costs, limited programing and underutilization.
We dove into the report and spoke to both Council Member Meek and Rec Center Director Ashley Garrison to unpack the challenges and review solutions in our latest feature.
SISD approved its 2025-2026 budget and tax rate at their board meeting on Monday. The $27 million budget was approved with a deficit of $287,000.
The board adopted a property tax rate of 94.25 cents per $100 valuation, which was the same as last year’s rate.
Learn why the board didn’t lower the rate as they had been doing the past five years, and learn how the move will save the district nearly $700,000 in our story from the meeting.
With three of the five taxing entities approving their tax rate this week, and the other two set to approve theirs in the next few weeks, we decided to take a comprehensive look at the total property tax Smithville residents are going to pay.
This is the CURRENT RATE. Click the image to see the projected new rate.
See which rates have been approved and which ones you can still issue public comment on. And see how much your total rate is going up this year in our latest news analysis..
Smithville Independent School District earned an overall C rating in the Texas Education Agency’s A-F accountability score for the 2025 school year, up from a D last year.
Learn which campus was responsible for the increase, what metrics helped boost our scores, and what challenges still persist in our latest news article.
If you look below this section you will notice a paid advertisement from Austin Water about a proposed project called Aquifer Storage and Recovery Project. If approved, this project would store Austin water in the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer in Bastrop County.
Please click on the image in the ad to learn all the details about the project, and we do invite you to attend the public meetings here in Smithville next month.
In late April, Bastrop City Council passed a resolution expressing opposition to the project. Austin Water gave a presentation to the Smithville City Council in May (presentation starts at 32:15), but no motion was made.
We will be interviewing officials from Austin Water about the ASR project the week of Sept. 8. What questions would you like us to ask them? What concerns do you have about the project?
Please hit reply to this email and let us know!
On Tap For Next Week
Monday Sept 1: Labor Day! We will be taking this day off, but the Smithville Minute will be back on Tuesday, Sept. 2.
Wednesday Sept 3: 9 a.m. ESD #3 will hold a public hearing on their proposed tax rate. (agenda)
Wednesday Sept 3: Smithville City Council will hold their final budget hearing at 5 p.m. in council chambers. (agenda, final proposed budget, presentation slides)
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Well Smithville, we made it another month, and what a month it was!
We started August by launching our new website and followed that up a week later by launching the Smithville Minute on Spotify. Thanks to everyone who subscribed, followed our podcast, and signed up to be a paid subscriber!
Here is a rundown of the stories we covered:
> I sat down with Sweet Tea Cafe owner Jessica Walker to talk about her business closing on Aug. 4, and learned about a new program the city is launching to help small businesses through the permitting process.
> I was there as both P&Z and the city council approved the replat for a 69-acre parcel that will be the Smithville Industrial Park, and listed some campaign finance donations related to the land owner.
> I also found the campaign finance report for the PAC that sent several negative text messages during the city council election earlier this year.
> I interviewed Kaila Smith, president of Smithville Little League, to discuss the improvements the league has made to the city-owned fields thanks to a collaborative effort involving taxpayer dollars, generous donations and countless volunteer hours.
> I went to the regular August council meeting, which featured a tax rate discussion, potential utility bill tweaks, spicy budget debates, and new development approval, as I explained in this video update.
> I wrote a short explainer article about ESD #3, the new taxing entity for Bastrop County residents.
> I gave everyone a link to the Smithville Comprehensive Plan and invited you to issue comments to help shape our future.
> I went to the 6.5-hour budget hearing and broke down how the council settled on the tax rate in this video update.
> I dedicated a second video to break down the decision by council to allocate $175,000 in this year’s budget for economic development.
I also sent an open letter to the Smithville City Council, the Mayor, and the City Manager on Aug. 27, asking them to support Smithville Texas News. I have not received a response from anyone. No one signed up for the free newsletter. No one became a paid subscriber. No one provided any suggestions for groups or organizations to connect with. No one provided any ideas about how to improve our coverage.
I will deliver the letter as public comment at the Sept. 8 council meeting.
Smithville Texas News’ financial health is trending upward, so thank you for the support!
We are at 41 paid subscribers (it went up since I made the graphic this morning!) and are looking to reach 500. I don’t expect to get all of those this week, but I’m hoping we can double our subscribers by next week. Please tell a friend about our publication!
Coach Neumann talked about belief in our interview (which you can read here), and I agree, it’s one of the most important things you can have. Belief in yourself, your work, your process–even when the outside world tells you you’re going to fail.
Very little changed for me financially this month. But my internal narrative was a complete 180 from the last few months. And the results showed up. I went from no website to launching one. I went from no podcast to one with 13 episodes. I went from 0 paid subscribers to 41.
Did that solve all my problems? NO! But I put in the effort and got results.
So as I turn the page to September on Monday, I will carry Coach Neumann’s words with me and continue to put in the effort.
Issue #27 September 5, 2025 City Manager Retiring In a surprise move on Thursday, City Manager Robert Tamble notified the city council he is retiring. Tamble has served in the role since June 1, 2014, taking over for Tex Middlebrook. Learn what Tamble’s expected last day is, read what he told council in his letter, and read what council members had to say about his retirement in our latest article. City Manager Submits Notice to Retire Tax Rate Drop At the Aug. 20 budget workshop the council...
Issue #25 August 22, 2025 What's the Tax Rate? It’s budget season in Smithville and property owners across the county are wondering: Are my property taxes going up? While we don’t have all the decisions from the five (!!!!!) taxing entities that make up your property tax bill, the City of Smithville’s rate was settled on Wednesday. This decision was made over nearly 20 hours at three budget hearings. We broke down exactly how we got to the rate, and their decision on taking on new debt in our...
Issue #24 August 15, 2025 Smithville Minute is on Spotify! The Smithville Minute is back, and we are now on Spotify! Every school morning at 7:07 a.m., the Smithville Minute provides local weather, news, and Tiger sports upates in 2-3 minutes. Plus find out where the live music and entertainment is happening for the weekend. We’ve still got the written Smithville Minute on our X feed, but the audio version is great to put on for you and the kids on the way to school (no cursing, we promise)....
