Reporting on Texas property taxes -- appraisals and protests, school and local tax rates, exemptions, bond elections, and the rewrite of the school funding formulas.
Amarillo told its residents in August that the coming city budget would raise $1,596,402 more in property taxes than last year's, an increase of 1.94 percent.
The Texas House Committee on Ways and Means meets at 10 a.m. Sept. 15 to take testimony on how local governments spend and borrow, and on whether the Legislature should cap the growth of both.
Harris County commissioners meet in special session at 9 a.m. Aug. 17 to take up proposed budgets and tax rates that one member has already called the largest increase in the county's history — four days after Tarrant County commissioners were handed a recommendation to cut their rate for a fourth straight year.
Texas school districts have until 5 p.m. Aug. 17 to place a tax-rate increase or a bond package on the Nov. 3 ballot, and over the past week several of the state's largest districts have done exactly that — the first broad test of whether voters will pay more for schools one year into the Legislature's rewrite of the school funding formulas.
Fort Worth wants to raise its property tax rate by 3.2 cents, and the average homeowner's city tax bill would go down $21.34.
San Antonio City Manager Erik Walsh presents his formal 2027 budget to the City Council today, and it is expected to carry something no city budget there has carried since the early 1990s: a property-tax rate increase.
A Travis County district court is scheduled to take up Austin's long-running Project Connect tax fight Thursday morning, in a hearing that will determine whether a court finally rules on the legality of the property tax increase voters approved in 2020 — or whether the case detours into another round of procedural appeals.
Two trustees of the Appraisal Foundation drove to Austin on Friday morning to tell the Texas Appraiser Licensing and Certification Board that the profession it regulates is running out of people.
The El Paso City Council voted 5-3 on Tuesday to advance the highest property tax rate the city can adopt without asking voters — a move that would raise the city tax bill on an average-value home by about $132 a year, according to reporting by El Paso Matters.
The appraisal rolls are certified and the argument moves to the only number that actually sets a tax bill.
The Texas Senate Finance Committee will meet Sept. 2 to examine a proposal to lower the eligibility age for the state's senior homestead tax benefits from 65 to 55, beginning formal legislative consideration of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's "Operation Double Nickel" ahead of the 2027 legislative session.
With the state's July 25 certification deadline behind them, county appraisal districts have handed local taxing units their certified 2026 tax rolls — the official value of everything they can tax — and the yearlong property-tax fight now moves from what your home is worth to the rate your city, county and school board set in August.
Governor Greg Abbott's July 17 major disaster declaration for 28 flood-hit counties did more than unlock federal aid.
Candidate filing opened Saturday for three elected seats on the Tarrant Appraisal District board, putting a two-year residential appraisal freeze that left an estimated 190,000 county homes overvalued in front of voters on Nov. 3.