Most Tarrant cities aren’t keeping taxes in check

If you’re a Tarrant County homeowner who is willing to badger city officials if necessary to keep your property taxes in check, you should live in Grapevine or maybe Colleyville.

It looks like officials there think along the same lines as you. In the face of property value increases, they’re proposing to drop tax rates to the point that they’ll raise only as much money from longtime property owners as they did last year.

But if you live in Bedford, Haltom City or Richland Hills, you’d better polish up your badgering skills. You’ve got work to do.

Bedford is proposing a tax rate so high that local residents can petition for a rollback election.

Haltom City and Richland Hills propose increases in tax rates on top of increases in taxable property values.

Most Tarrant County cities are looking at dropping tax rates some, while also taking advantage of property value increases to build their budgets.

Those are the highlights of a Star-Telegram Editorial Board analysis of public notices published by local cities after the Tarrant Appraisal District distributed certified property value statements in late July.

Most cities will begin public hearings this week on their proposed new tax rates.

Tax bills will go out later this year based on the rates adopted after those public hearings.

TAD’s certified property value list was an eye-opener. It showed overall appraised property values in Tarrant County up nearly 12 percent in the last year.

The increase the previous year was 5 percent.

Net taxable values, the figure after all allowable exemptions are removed, were up 9.6 percent across the county this year.

That’s what cities base their budgets on, and the figure varies from city to city depending on individual property characteristics.

Other interesting points from TAD’s list and the cities’ published statements:

Fort Worth’s net taxable values are up 7.9 percent. The city proposes a tax rate cut of 2.3 percent.

Arlington’s net values increased 6.9 percent. The city’s proposed 0.49 percent tax rate cut is far from balancing out the value increase.

Mansfield, with an 8.7 percent net value increase, proposes no rate cut.

Southlake’s net values are up 13.3 percent, with no proposed rate cut.

This story was originally published August 19, 2016 at 7:03 PM with the headline "Most Tarrant cities aren’t keeping taxes in check."