Emergency services districts (ESDs) around Leander

Emergency services districts (ESDs) around Leander (DRAFT – not published)

In short

An ESD is a small local government that pays for fire protection or ambulance service, mostly outside city limits. It charges a property tax that shows up as its own line on your bill. Williamson County has 12 ESDs. In tax year 2025, the county’s online rate list shows ten of them charging 10 cents or close to it per $100 of value. ESD #12, which covers neighborhoods near Leander and Cedar Park east of US 183, was at about 8.4 cents.¹

The 30-second version

• What it is. An ESD is a district that voters create to pay for fire and emergency service. A five-person board runs it.²
• Who pays. Owners of property inside the ESD’s lines. Inside Leander city limits, the city’s own fire department serves you.³ Check your own bill to see whether it has an ESD line.
• What it costs. On a $400,000 taxable home, ESD #12’s rate of $0.083640 per $100 works out to about $335 a year. At a full 10 cents it would be $400.¹

Which ESDs touch the Leander area

District	Tax year 2025 rate (per $100)	Notes
ESD #12 (Cedar Park/Leander)	$0.083640	Created by voters in Nov. 2011. Covers Breakaway, Caballo Ranch, Whippoorwill, Lakewood Country Estates, Sam Bass area and others east of US 183. Service comes by contract with Cedar Park Fire.4
ESD #11 (Cedar Park)	$0.090900	Also created in Nov. 2011, for unincorporated areas near Cedar Park.4
ESD #4 (Liberty Hill)	$0.074495	Northwest of Leander.1

The county’s online 2025 rate list puts all 12 county ESD rates between $0.074495 and $0.100000.¹

Leander’s Travis County side

Most of Leander is in Williamson County, but part of the city and its outlying area is in Travis County. Inside Leander city limits, the Leander Fire Department serves you.³ In the unincorporated area west of the city, such as Sandy Creek, two Travis County districts overlap:⁵

District	Job	Tax year 2025 rate (per $100)
Travis County ESD #1	Fire and rescue, with stations on Round Mountain Road and Trails End Road	$0.100000
Travis County ESD #7	Ambulance (EMS) only; it pays ESD #1 to provide the service	$0.099967

Because the two districts overlap, a home in both pays about 20 cents per $100. On a $400,000 taxable home that is about $800 a year, about twice what a home in Williamson County ESD #12 pays. Voters added the Leander-area land to ESD #7 in a May 2021 election.⁵

How the rates moved

The county’s audited report lists ESD rates for 10 years. ESD #12 was at $0.100000 through the 2021 tax year. Then it set $0.088870, $0.090698 and $0.085984 for tax years 2022–2024, and, per the county’s 2025 rate list, $0.083640 for 2025. ESD #4 went from $0.100000 (2015 tax year) to as low as $0.067054 (2022), then $0.074944 (2024) and $0.074495 (2025).⁶¹

What the law says

• Creation. Residents petition, the commissioners court holds a hearing, and voters decide in an election (Health and Safety Code §775.011 and §775.018).²
• Board. For an ESD inside one county, the commissioners court appoints a five-member board to two-year terms (§775.034).²
• Tax. The board must set a property tax each year, cannot set the rate before it adopts a budget, and sends the rate to the county tax assessor-collector, who collects it (§775.074).²
• The 10-cent cap. The Texas Constitution lets ESDs tax up to 10 cents per $100 of value, and only after voters in the district approve (art. III, §48-e).⁷ Each district has its own cap, so two overlapping districts can charge up to 20 cents together.
• Raising a district’s maximum. To raise its maximum rate up to that cap, the board must call an election, and voters must approve (§775.0745).²
• Cities. When a city annexes land inside an ESD and plans to be the only emergency provider there, it sends the ESD written notice, and the land leaves the ESD. The ESD’s existing debts are not erased (§775.022).²

The other side

• Low rate is not the same as good value. A district with a lower rate can have higher home values, more contract revenue, or fewer stations. Response times and staffing tell you more than the rate alone.
• ESDs can also ask voters for a sales tax of 1/8% up to 2%, subject to limits in the law (§775.0751). That cost does not show up on the property tax bill.²
• Contracts shape service. ESD #12 buys service from Cedar Park. Service and cost depend on the terms of that contract.⁴

What you can do

• Look at your tax bill. If you see “ESD” on a line, that district taxes your property.
• ESD boards hold public meetings and budget hearings before setting rates. The county’s ESD page lists each district.⁴

What we still don’t know

• Exact district lines for each Travis-side neighborhood. Check your own bill.
• Each ESD’s response times and budgets. We have not read the ESDs’ own audits.

Questions to ask

• Where does each emergency services district post its budget and audit?
• Where does each district post its response times?

Changes to this page

• Nov. 2, 2026: We changed wording so it says no more than our sources show.
• Nov. 2, 2026: Added questions to ask.
• Nov. 2, 2026: We now say that the latest ESD rates come from a county list we read online but could not save.
• Nov. 2, 2026: We added a source link for the latest ESD rates.

Footnotes

1. Williamson County, “2025 Tax Rates and Exemptions by Jurisdictions”: ESD #1 0.100000, #2 0.100000, #3 0.100000, #4 0.074495, #5 0.099986, #6 0.100000, #7 0.100000, #8 0.091200, #9 0.099911, #10 0.100000, #11 0.090900, #12 0.083640. $400,000 × 0.083640 ÷ 100 = $334.56. https://www.wilcotx.gov/DocumentCenter/View/17584. Read 2026-11-01. We read it online but the county site would not let us save a copy, so these figures are as we read them. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. Texas Health and Safety Code ch. 775, §§775.011, .018, .022, .034, .074, .0745, .0751. https://texas.public.law/statutes/tex._health_and_safety_code_section_775.074 (and neighboring sections). Read 2026-11-01. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

3. Travis County, Emergency Service Districts map (Jan. 11, 2016), which shows the City of Leander as having its own fire service. https://www.traviscountytx.gov/images/fire_marshal/docs/ESD_map.pdf. ↩ ↩²

4. Williamson County ESD page, https://www.wilcotx.gov/971/Emergency-Services-Districts-ESDs; City of Cedar Park, ETJ Fire Protection Services, https://www.cedarparktexas.gov/314/ETJ-Fire-Protection-Services. Read 2026-11-01. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

5. Travis County ESD 1, home and stations pages, https://www.tcesd1.org/ and https://www.tcesd1.org/stations; Travis County ESD 7, tax information (2025: M&O 0.075222 + debt 0.024745 = 0.099967), https://www.tcesd7.org/tax-rates, and 2021 annexation FAQ, https://www.tcesd7.org/travis-county-emergency-services-district-no-7-annexation-election-frequently-asked-questions-faq. ESD 1 2025 rate 0.1 from the Travis County Tax Office rate list. $400,000 × 0.199967 ÷ 100 = $799.87. Read 2026-11-01. ↩ ↩²

6. Williamson County FY2025 ACFR, statistical section, property tax rates of direct and overlapping governments (fiscal-year columns are the prior tax year). https://emma.msrb.org/P11938140.pdf. ↩

7. Texas Constitution, art. III, §48-e. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/GetStatute.aspx?Code=CN&Value=3.48-e. Read 2026-11-01. ↩