The county property tax levy for 2009-10 will be about 1.2 cents lower per $100 valuation than the 2008-09 rate.

Lampasas County Commissioners Court last week unanimously approved a budget for the new fiscal year, which began Thursday. The court also voted 5-0 to set the county's tax rate at 60.789 cents per $100. Tax rate for the fiscal year just ended was 62 cents per $100.

Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack B. Cox noted that all department heads cut their budgets by 5 percent in order to balance the budget without increasing the tax rate. Despite the spending cuts, county employees still will receive 3 percent pay increases, Precinct 3 Commissioner Lowell Ivey added.

Even with the reduced tax rate, property owners' tax bills might increase this year if the appraised value of their properties has risen since last year.

In another item, the Commissioners Court approved a resolution authorizing an application for an indigent defense grant. The county will use grant funds to defray some of the cost to provide court-appointed attorneys to indigent defendants tried in the county, as state law requires.

Recently, in one week alone, five people applied in county court for public defenders, County Judge Wayne Boultinghouse said.

County resident Diana Fisch asked commissioners if indigent defense is restricted to U.S. citizens. Precinct 2 Commissioner Alex Wittenburg said, by law, county officials "cannot discriminate."

Cox noted that Hosam Maher Husein Smadi -- a 19-year-old Jordanian accused of trying to blow up the 60-story Fountain Place office tower in Dallas -- will be defended by a court-appointed attorney. Smadi, arrested Sept. 24 by undercover FBI agents, allegedly had been residing illegally in the United States, according to the Justice Department.

County officials also have little authority to verify that a defendant who applies for a public defender is truly "indigent," Boultinghouse added.

During the public comment portion of the recent meeting, Mrs. Fisch, who lives on County Road 2001, asked the Commissioners Court to pass a resolution urging Oncor Electric Delivery to use buried cables for the company's Brown-to-Newton electric transmission project.

Oncor officials are considering several possible routes through Lampasas County for 345-kilovolt transmission lines, which Mrs. Fisch said can be as tall as 120 feet. Easements may be as wide as 500 feet, she added.

Underground lines, Mrs. Fisch said, would be easier to maintain than overhead lines and would minimize electromagnetic fields, disruption of wildlife and land devaluation.

Sharon McWilliams, a Fort Worth resident whose family for 80 years has owned a ranch near CR 2001, also urged the court to approve a resolution calling for buried lines rather than lattice towers.

Mrs. McWilliams and her husband travel to their ranch every month, she said. The land has been disrupted, she said, by a gas pipe- line, Lower Colorado River Authority utility routes and U.S. highway construction.

"Now they want to build an electric farm out there," said Mrs. McWilliams. "The property is being destroyed little by little."

Kempner resident Paul Cook also addressed the court, saying Killeen and other urban areas will benefit from the new transmission lines much more than Lampasas County will.

Wittenburg said he would vote for a resolution supporting under- ground lines or "monopole" structures, which some landowners consider less intrusive than the lattice towers Oncor officials have said they plan to use in the Brown-to- Newton project.

"What they'll do with that [resolution], I don't know," Wittenburg said, "but I would be in full support of that."

Oncor has until Wednesday to give the Public Utility Commission a list of preferred and alternate routes. Boultinghouse urged concerned citizens to attend PUC public meetings in Austin as the commission prepares to approve or disapprove the Oncor project.

Also at the meeting, the Commissioners Court tabled nominations for two vacant positions on the Lampasas Central Appraisal District Board of Directors and set a holiday list for 2010. County offices will be closed for 15 holidays, including two days for Veterans Day -- Nov. 11-12.

In addition, Precinct 1 Commissioner Robert Vincent noted that a recent tire collection effort has ended. His precinct collected between 900 and 1,100 tires, the commissioner said.

"That's 900 to 1,100 tires we won't see in our creeks, rivers and on the sides of roads," the commmissioner said.