SETGCD OKs state management plan
By JIMMY GALVAN Managing Editor

Due to a few technical mistakes in the original plan submitted to the state, the Southeast Texas Groundwater Conservation District had to approve adoption of the District's Management Plan again during a meeting held Thursday, Nov. 8 in Kirbyville.

Along with the normal duties of the more than 84 groundwater conservation district's in the state, STGCD is responsible for passing a five-year management plan. The state gives each district two years to implement this plan and for STGCD this meant the plan had to be put in place by November of 2007.

John Stover, the district's attorney, said the changes were minor in nature but were recommended by the state water board representative Rima Petrossian.

"There is nothing substancially different from the first Master Plan that was approved in October," Stover said of the changes.

Stover explained that the reason the district had to expedite the completion of the master plan was for its usage by the regional planning board in producing the next regional plan.

"This also gets you well into the process of getting a desired future condition process worked out," Stover said.

Chairman Merlin Breaux said the "thrust of the District's work" is already being felt at the state level in the formation of the regional water plan. election day about what a "For" or "Against" vote meant because of the term "Rollback." A "For or Yes" vote gave the district approval for the tax rate while a "No or Against" vote meant that the rate would be rolled back to the state rate of $1.21.

David Luther, Chief Appraiser for the Jasper County Appraisal District said that one big reason for the confusion is that in city and county rollback elections, wording is the opposite.

Without voter approval of the 13 cents above the state rate, the district would have had to use fund balance reserves to fund the budget, even though the 2007-2008 budget is one percent lower than the previous year.

"Now, I can go home, go to sleep and rest easy," Foster said. "Mr. Luther can now start printing out the tax statements."

Luther said that tax statements are already being printed and should be in the mail by next weekend.