Senator Paul Bettencourt was first elected to the Texas Senate in 2014. He represents Senate District 7, a stretch of West Harris County that includes some of Houston’s most prominent neighborhoods.
With a career rooted in transforming government for the better, Bettencourt started his journey in public service with a 10-year stint as Harris County’s Tax Assessor-Collector. It is there where he introduced the idea of “Smart Government” and spent his tenure realigning the office to excel in customer service.
Today, as a 10-year member of the Texas Senate, he is a well-known figure and has earned the reputation of “Tax Man” for his leadership role in reforming tax laws and his efforts to reduce Texans’ property tax bills. While he may be best known for his work on property taxes, Bettencourt’s legislative focus is much broader — having championed special education reforms and funding and innovative therapies for patients who are terminally ill and more.
While the Texas Senate has earned a reputation for its more conservative leadership, Bettencourt says it hasn’t always been that way.
“The Senate, ten years ago, was not considered the conservative bastion that it is now,” says Bettencourt.
Under the leadership of the Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, Bettencourt believes that this shift in the Senate has been a productive change, at least for Texans who want to see conservative legislation advance.
The Texas Senate now, says Bettencourt, is “probably the most effective [state Senate] anywhere in the United States.”
At the top of the Texas Senate’s legislative priorities this year was another attempt at school choice in Texas – namely, establishing Education Savings Accounts (ESA) to provide education funding for parents who want to take their students out of the public school system. This wasn’t the first attempt, says Bettencourt.
“Last decade, I was carrying earlier versions [of Education Savings Accounts] called Tax Credit Scholarships,” says Bettencourt. “We could get them out of the Senate” but not the House.
This has been the fate of almost all school choice legislation since then, passed the Senate but fails in the House.
However, this time, there was a major change in the political climate, says Bettencourt. The debate took place following Governor Greg Abbott making the issue his top priority and expending a tremendous amount of political capital to try to get it done.
“The real blockbuster that occurred was the Governor,” says Bettencourt. During the 2024 Republican primaries, Bettencourt says that the Greg Abbott campaign “blasted 15 out of 17 Republican state reps who were against school choice.”
By removing those members and putting everybody else on notice, the stage was set to finally pass school choice in Texas. And it did.
“These educational savings accounts are a passion of mine,” says Bettencourt. “A lot of these kids that will benefit have special needs.”
In addition, “we passed SB 569, and so special needs kids get evaluations, they get modeling done,” says Bettencourt. That’s “$699 million into the public school system just for special needs.”
“But that’s not all,” says Bettencourt. This session, Bettencourt has filed and authored more than 130 pieces of legislation and to no surprise many of them address property taxes in Texas.
Among those are Senate Bill 4, which is now passed and a major priority of Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and Senator Bettencourt, and Senate Bill 23. The legislation increases the homestead exemption and raises the homestead exemption for seniors on school district property taxes.
“We’re raising the [general] homestead exemption by 40%,” from $100,000 to $140,000, says Bettencourt. The additional exemption for seniors would be raised from 10,000 to 60,000 under Bettencourt’s proposal.
“Over 65, the seniors, they are going to get an average of $950 off their property tax bill,” Bettencourt says. “And that is every year, for your lifetime.”
In addition to the state of Texas using surplus revenues to buy down property taxes in Texas, which has reached $51 billion according to Bettencourt, this November, voters have an opportunity to approve these increases in the homestead exemption.
“43% of Texas seniors don’t pay property tax right now,” says Bettencourt. “We pass all this stuff in November, it’s going to shoot up over a supermajority, close to two-thirds of Texas seniors who won’t pay property tax for school districts.”
Two particular loopholes that contribute to rising property taxes on the local government side that Bettencourt hopes to address this session are the subject of SB1449 and SB2519.
SB1449, which was the Senate companion to HB30, closes the disaster exemption to the property tax limits in state law, says Bettencourt. As an example, Bettencourt says that the city of Houston raised its property taxes 15% above the no-new revenue rate using this exemption. The normal limit is 3.5% for cities and counties. HB30 passed both chambers and was signed by Governor Greg Abbott on May 20.
The other bill, SB2519, aims to close a loophole that some cities in Texas think allows them to use maintenance and operations property tax for debt-service. Bettencourt disagrees.
“You don’t want to cross the streams,” Bettencourt says. “Maintenance and operations money is supposed to go to the city’s general fund,” not be used to pay long-term debt. In Texas, there is a completely separate property tax, called an Interest & Sinking Fund, that is constitutionally-dedicated to pay off long-term debt.
The maintenance and operations property tax is subject to annual appropriation of the local governing body, and pledging that for long-term debt service creates an unconstitutional obligation, according to the Texas Attorney General and Bettencourt.
By allowing the streams to be crossed, as Bettencourt put it, the city creates an almost unlimited ability to issue debt without ever having to go ask voters. SB2519 has passed the Senate and has been reported favorably by the House Ways & Means Committee. It needs to get through the full House by Sine Die.
“I look at all of this and it’s a wonderful transformation,” Bettencourt says.