TESTIMONY IN SUPPORT OF HB‐2445 I am Lewisville Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Bob Troyer. The City of Lewisville strongly supports passage of HB‐2445.

Lewisville is a city of about 100,000 people. We have a little more than 2,500 acres in our ETJ, all of it contained within a single development called Hills. This development is managed by a Fresh Water Supply District, and is sub‐divided into eight districts. There currently are about 15,000 residents in Castle Hills, with a projected population of 30,000 people at build‐out. These people are not Lewisville residents today, but the plan is that they will be as early as July 2021. In the meantime, they have certain service needs that the Fresh Water Supply District is not able to provide in a cost‐effective manner. Chief among those are public safety in the form of police, fire and emergency medical services. Under a development agreement with the Fresh Water Supply District, the city provides public safety services in Castle Hills and the District pays the city a negotiated fee. The city and the District have a Strategic Partnership Agreement (a SPA) that collects the city’s 1 percent general sales tax on commercial districts within Castle Hills, and uses that sales tax revenue to pay for public safety services to all Castle Hills districts. As the population in Castle Hills has grown, and especially as commercial development boomed along the state highway, residents there have expressed interest in increased police

HB‐2445 Testimony by Lewisville Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Bob Troyer 1 services. However, the 1 percent general sales tax does not provide enough money for those expanded services. The city has an existing Crime Control District to generate additional funds for police services in Lewisville. When we attempted to collect that sales tax in the Castle Hills commercial districts, the State Comptroller told us we couldn’t do so without an election in those areas. But when we looked to state law for directions on holding such an election, we discovered that no such process exists. We believe this is an oversight that requires a legislative solution. The intent of this bill is to give the Texans living in Castle Hills a voice. If this bill becomes law, voters would be given the chance to decide to join the Crime Control District – or not to. It would be their option. State law was changed in 2015 to allow an election for an ETJ to join a Fire Control and Prevention District. Last year, Castle Hills residents voted by a wide margin to do exactly that. As the law stands today, they are not able to consider joining the Crime Control District. We believe this legislation will give voters a choice, whether increased public safety services are important to them, and whether they are willing to pay for those services. State law does not currently give them that choice. I encourage you to correct this apparent oversight by supporting HB‐2445.

HB‐2445 Testimony by Lewisville Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Bob Troyer 2