DTX-KRN: Impact 8/29/2025

Roanoke officials held a public hearing Aug. 26 to discuss increasing the property tax rate for fiscal year 2025-26 to fund new city staff positions and Capital Improvement Projects.

What you need to know: City officials are proposing increasing the property tax rate by $0.018 for a total of $0.326182 per $100 valuation, Director of Finance Kyle Lester said.

If the tax increase is approved by City Council, the average property owner would pay $134 more annually than last year based on the average home price of $570,000 and the taxable value of $426,000, he said. 

Diving deeper: If the tax increase is approved by City Council, $465,000 of the $936,655 revenue increase will go toward debt funds related to construction of a parking garage on US 377 and Main Street, Lester said.

Three Hawaiian Falls water parks, including the Roanoke location, were sold to Ripley Entertainment, the parent company of Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

The details: According to an Aug. 26 announcement from Hawaiian Falls, the three locations in Roanoke, Waco and Mansfield are all part of the acquisition.

The parks still will be open on weekends and certain dates through mid-September, according to Hawaiian Falls.

Diving deeper: Hawaiian Falls will also be adding new attractions and updates to its parks in the upcoming months to fit the new ownership, the post states.

Both chambers of the Texas Legislature have voted to overhaul the state’s standardized testing system, putting public school students one step closer to taking new exams in the 2027-28 school year.

The details: House Bill 8 would eliminate the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness and replace it with three shorter tests, which students would take at the beginning, middle and end of each school year.

Bill author Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, said HB 8 would “reduce test anxiety, provide teachers with immediate feedback and create a pathway for trust in our system again." The majority of House Democrats and a few Republicans disagreed, arguing Aug. 26 that the bill would increase the amount of time students spend on exams and essentially create “another STAAR test” developed by the Texas Education Agency.

Next steps: After state senators passed HB 8 with a 21-7 vote Aug. 27, the bill returned to the House for consideration of a Senate amendment. If House lawmakers sign off on the changes, HB 8 will be sent to the governor.