News post

Author’s note: please bear with me. This is long but it’s a complex and important topic. The data below is current as of the writing of this, July 10, 2026. If facts change or events occur, they will be updated on this website.

Abbreviations and terms used here:

• District – the Collin County Water Control and Improvement District #3 also known as CCWCID3 – This is the taxing entity that’s on your property tax bill. We are responsible for streets, sewer, storm drains, public sidewalks, etc. within Inspiration. Despite its similar sounding name, it is not the water/sewer supply firm that delivers water and sewer services in Inspiration. That would be the Wylie Northeast Special Utility District.

• ESD – Collin County Emergency Servies District #1.

• City – a municipality in Texas can be a town or a city depending on its size and type of charter. To simplify, this document will refer to both as a city.

• ETJ – an area outside of a municipality’s city limits. The distance from the city limits that the ETJ encompasses depends on the city size and other factors.

• MUD – the generic name for a district like CCWCID3. The legal differences in Texas between a Municipal Utility District and a Water Control and Improvement District are very few. No one seems to know why we are a WCID and not a MUD.

• ILA – Inter-Local Agreement. A legal contract between certain allowed entities in Texas, i.e. towns, cities, ESDs, MUDs.

• Collin CAD – the Collin Central Appraisal District is the entity that tracks property ownership and decides which taxing entities are authorized to collect property tax on taxable properties within Collin County

• CCCC – The Collin County Commissioners Court – the board that is the governing body for Collin County.

History and Reference information: 

• A petition to create an ESD in Collin County was delivered to the CCCC. The petition was verified and accepted. An election was conducted in November 2025. The ESD issue passed and the ESD was created.

• The ESD will be responsible for providing for Fire/EMS services within its boundaries.

• The boundaries of the ESD encompass all the unincorporated area (area not in the city limits) within Collin County except:

• The areas within the ETJ of a city where the governing council opted to not allow their ETJ area to vote in the ESD election nor be in the ESD when formed.

• Collin County press release: https://www.collincountytx.gov/details?news=31f8c31e-f192-44b0-9810-054fb4d3fc71&title=Collin-County-Emergency-Services-District-No-1-Approved-by-VotersHow and why the ESD came into existence

• https://collincountyesd1.org/The ESD website – As of 7/10/2026, not a lot of info there other than meeting notices, meeting documents, etc.

• The ESD will be funded by a property tax, most likely this will be $0.10/$100 of assessed valuation, i.e. 0.1% of assessed valuation. This value is the maximum allowed for an ESD to charge. The ESD is also legally allowed to charge a sales tax, but the current ESD board does not seem to favor using this method.

• Fire/EMS services information for Inspiration.

• Prior to June 2025, the HOA was responsible for contracting with the city of Wylie for Fire/EMS services. The services were paid for by part of the HOA annual assessments.

• In June 2026, subsequent to an election, the District took over the Fire/EMS contract and it is now paid for as part of the District property tax.

ESD Status

• The ESD board consist of five members appointed by the CCCC. The ESD board had its first meeting in February 2026 and continues to have one or two meetings per month as they go through the process of setting up their structure, contracts, and operational procedures.

• When the CCCC created the ESD, they adopted a Statement of Shared Principles they wished the ESD board to follow. The ESD board adopted these at their first meeting. Full text is https://mccmeetingspublic.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/wylietx-meet-8af7a0576d4643a28b72ed9c94f56da6/ITEM-Attachment-001-08d550191a544abeabb07647d7354d46.pdfhere. Number 3 and 4 of these principles are pertinent to Inspiration:

• 3. The ESD should support existing fire service contracts between municipalities and municipal utility districts.

• 4. The ESD should avoid double taxation of residents in municipal utility districts.

• For the near to mid-term future, the ESD intends to provide services by signing ILAs and contracts with existing city and volunteer fire departments to provide fire service and a commercial EMS vendor (AMR). It is possible that at some point, the ESD will create and operate its own fire and/or EMS services, but no plans are being considered at this time.

• The first year of ESD taxing will be the tax bills due in 2027. Hence, the ESD is scrambling to get things set up by the deadlines ahead of issuing those tax bills.

How “no double taxation” is achieved for most MUDS

• Most MUDs in the county are entirely within the ESD and the process to avoid double taxation is fairly simple.

• The MUD has an existing contract to provide Fire/EMS services to the MUD residents.

• The ESD enters into an ILA with the MUD to reimburse the MUD for the tax collected.

• The ESD collects its tax on properties in the MUD.

• The ESD sends the funds to the MUD.

• The MUD reduces its property tax by the appropriate amount to account for the tax collected by the ESD.

• The net result is the property owners only pay once for the contracted Fire/EMS services.

Why this method is a problem for Inspiration

• Prior to June 2025, Inspiration was within the ETJ of three cities:

• Wylie

• St. Paul

• Lucas

• As mentioned above, when the ESD was formed, each city council was allowed to vote on whether or not their ETJ would be allowed to be in the ESD. The councils voted:

• Wylie – Yes

• St. Paul – No

• Lucas – No

• This placed the ETJ* of Wylie within the ESD and the rest of the District outside of the ESD.

• Thus, the properties in the Wylie ETJ* will be taxed for the ESD and the rest of the properties will not.

• *   the asterisk means that the ETJ of Wylie as of the ESD formation is not the same as the ETJ of Wylie now.

• In late June, 2025, the Lucas and Wylie councils made an agreement to transfer the portion of Lucas ETJ that was covering Inspiration to Wylie, adding it to the Wylie ETJ. Thus, currently Inspiration is in the ETJs of Wylie and St. Paul.

• However, that area transferred from Lucas was not included in the ESD because Collin CAD did not register the transfer until December 2025, which was after the ESD boundaries was set.

• Again, the only portion of the District in the ESD is that part which was in the Wylie ETJ as of early June, 2025.

How do I know if my home is in the ESD or not?

• Look at the notice that Collin CAD sent out a few months ago with your assessed value. If there is a line on there for Collin ESD then you are in the ESD. If that line is not in your list of taxing entities, you are not in the ESD.

• Or go to the https://maps.collincountytx.gov/main/Collin County Interactive Map.

• Zoom in and scroll to locate your property on the map.

• In the top menu bar, there is a symbol that looks like a stack of papers. That is the Layers button. Click it and a Layer List will appear on the right sidebar. 

• Click the small triangle on the left side of Public Safety. 

• Then click the checkbox to turn on the CC ESD #1 layer.

• If your home is in blue, you are in the ESD.

• What if the boundary line goes through the middle of my lot?

• We’ve been told that Collin CAD will tax you for the percentage of your lot that is in the ESD. 

• We’ve also been told that Collin CAD has been working on refining their data for several months. It may or not change.

So, your property is in the ESD, how will you not be double taxed?

• Therin lies the rub, as Shakespear would say. There are lot of legal restrictions on what can be done.

• The ESD cannot reimburse individuals, only MUDs.

• The District will only receive the taxes collected by the ESD on the properties in the ESD.

• The District must set its tax rate the same for all properties so we cannot adjust the tax rate for just the properties in the ESD.

• If the District drops its tax rate by the same amount as the ESD tax rate, then the District will see a huge drop in tax revenue and properties in areas of the District that are not in the ESD will benefit from those that are in the ESD.

• The District is not allowed to make payments to individuals.

• BUT, we are working on a plan.

• It’s messy and a bit complex.

• It’s not something we want to do from now on. It’s only planned for the next tax year.

• It’s not totally validated yet.

• But in theory, it should work.

• We’ll share it as soon as we are confident that it’s viable.

What about the following years?

• We need to get the entire District either in or out of the ESD.

• If the entire District is OUT of the ESD, then things for the District go back to where they were prior to the ESD being created.

• Problem: There is nothing in the statutes for ESDs that allow a portion to be removed unless it’s annexed into a city. Annexation is not happening anytime soon.

• If the entire District is IN the ESD, then we can apply the simple methods most MUDS use to assure no double taxation.

• For areas not in an ESD to be absorbed by the ESD requires petitions and elections. This is cumbersome and expensive. However, we know there are other areas which have asked to be included in the ESD. The ESD is likely to pay for the election. The logistics can’t be accomplished by November 2026. It will be in May or November 2027 before an election can be held.

• At the moment, this seems the only viable long-term solution. 

• First, we must deal with the next tax year.