Homeowners likely to see Tarrant County tax cut, even as property values rise
Homeowners are likely to see a smaller Tarrant County tax bill in 2024, the result of spending cuts and a new homestead exemption.
Outgoing county administrator G.K. Maenius has proposed a $896.6 million budget that is $8.1 million less than this year’s as well as a 13.17% cut in the tax rate, to 19.45 cents per $100 of a home’s appraised value.
The owner of a $350,000 home with the recently approved 10% homestead exemption would see a property tax bill of $612.68.
Homeowners’ property tax bills have consistently gone up in recent years because of skyrocketing property values, even as the county, cities and school districts have cut their tax rates.
Maenius said the departments were asked to hold their budgets. Retirements, the elimination of retention payments for employees, and cuts in software development and construction spending added to the savings.
“We held this budget really pretty tight, you know, and so we were able to to hit all of our points and have a real dollar savings to residents,” Maenius told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram following the county’s Thursday budget hearing.
Budgets for departments that were satisfied with the amount they were given were approved unanimously by the county commissioners Thursday. Despite the commissioners’ vote, the total budget could change between now and when it is approved in September.
Taxpayers will see additional relief on their tax bill if they approve a constitutional amendment Nov. 7. The proposal approved by lawmakers includes increasing the homestead exemption for school taxes to $100,000, reducing the school tax rate by 10.7 cents and placing a 20% cap on appraisal increases for non-homestead residential and commercial properties valued at or below $5 million.
The budget at a glance
The proposed budget includes an additional 17 positions.
One of those is a public information position to handle records requests at at elections office. Budget documents show that more than 400 information requests have been submitted to the elections office in 2023.
Sheriff Bill Waybourn appeared at Thursday’s hearing to tell the commissioners there needed to be a feasibility study done on the jail because it was full. The jail opened in 1991 and the maximum security Lon Evans Corrections Center opened in 2012.
Commissioners Roy Charles Brooks told Waybourn he wasn’t in favor of building a new jail until they reduced the population of inmates who are in the jail because they can’t pay bail.
