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.
Texas homeowners were promised that the state’s expanded homestead exemption would cut their tax bills this fall.
As Texas homeowners prepare to see the state's larger homestead exemption on their fall tax bills, Austin is moving to claw back part of that relief on the city's side of the ledger.
As Texas appraisal districts race toward the July 25 deadline to certify their tax rolls, the state's two most powerful Republicans are advancing competing visions for the next round of property-tax cuts, and the gap between them will frame the property tax debate.
The amount of local property-tax revenue Texas clawed back from property-wealthy school districts fell sharply in the 2025-26 school year, the first full accounting since lawmakers rewrote the school-finance formulas.
The Tarrant Appraisal District's chief appraiser told his board June 10 that the county's freeze on home values has made its tax roll "less uniform and more regressive," an admission that carries statewide weight as Gov. Greg Abbott campaigns on a property tax overhaul built on less frequent appraisals.
As Texas enters the summer stretch when appraisal rolls are certified and local governments set next year's tax rates, more than 130 cities are entering it under an order that they cannot raise property taxes at all above the no-new-revenue rate.
For the first time since the pandemic-era run-up, some Texas homeowners are seeing their appraised values fall — a shift that, paired with this year's larger homestead exemption, should ease the tax burden on many households when bills arrive this fall.
In late June 2026, the long-term sustainability of the Texas public finance system emerged as a primary point of debate as state leadership proposed a sweeping structural overhaul of the property tax system.
Texas school districts paid more than $2.3 billion back to the state in recapture during the 2025-26 school year, with 192 districts writing checks under the "Robin Hood" system, according to figures compiled by the Texas School Coalition and Texas Policy Research.
Governor Greg Abbott used a Tuesday event in Bullard to promote what he calls a "taxpayer empowerment" plan, a five-point package he says would slow local tax increases and deliver lasting property tax relief.
Filing for three elected seats on Texas appraisal district boards opens July 18.
The Marshall City Council took up an ordinance June 25 to authorize up to $35 million in certificates of obligation for water and sewer work, according to the City of Marshall website.