West Houston News

In the view of Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) policy director James Quintero, it’s far past time for the state officials to think of finally putting residents first.

"It’s not a stretch to say that property taxes are out of control in the Lone Star State,” Quintero wrote in a recent newsletter addressing the issue. “As a result, local governments are getting rich while families are forced to make hard decisions."

All across the state, the issue has become such a hot button that lawmakers from all walks are now joining forces to lend bipartisan support to a campaign aimed at lessening the load felt by many property owners.  

Even before a TPPF report published focusing on data from 2016-2020 highlighted how wildly rates have fluctuated upward, the aforementioned bipartisan movement was underway in hopes of easing the pain.

 Published in February, the report also detailed how property tax increases for the state’s largest school districts have risen compared to the tax's preferred growth rate, which is a combination of inflation plus population growth, was on the rise.  

Data shows rates in almost every ISD have recently jumped faster than the preferred rate of growth, with only Katy ISD and Conroe ISD being the two school districts that kept their property tax growth rate below the preferred rate of growth.

At Katy ISD's property tax grew 15.4% from $538.4 million to $621.0 million from 2016 to 2020, according to a report published by the Texas Public Policy Foundation. The combined population and inflation for the city grew by 22.2% during that time, resulting in a difference of -6.8%.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation's "Just the Facts: Property Taxes in Texas’ Most Populous Cities, Counties and School Districts" report further details that property taxes are “the largest tax assessed in Texas.” As recently as in 2019, nearly 50% of all tax dollars collected in the state came from property taxes, with as many as 4,256 separate property taxing units in Texas in the fiscal year of 2019, some of which overlapped.

The Balance pegged the state among the top 10 for highest property tax rates in the country with a median payment of $4,065 per year and the Tax Foundation found that the state had the sixth-highest property tax rate measured as property taxes paid as a percentage of owner-occupied housing value in 2019.

"If left unchallenged, these value increases have the potential to really take a bite out of taxpayers over the long-haul,” Quintero added.

“Taxpayers should be prepared to defend their wallets this year—first by protesting their property tax appraisals and then by pressuring their local elected officials to adopt lower tax rates.

Back in 2019, the Texas legislature passed House Bill 3, which made sweeping changes to the school finance system, among them establishing that school districts conduct efficiency audits “before a district seeks voter approval for increasing tax rates.”

An efficiency audit is defined as “an investigation of the operations of a school district to examine fiscal management, efficiency and utilization of resources”