Before you curse city, county for high property taxes, hear what Tarrant leader says
Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley really wants you to know that he and other county officials are not the reason your property tax bill is high — no matter what state leaders say.
In response to a sustained assault from Austin, Whitley has honed a presentation about local governments’ taxes and spending. He argues that counties in particular are in a bad spot: The state allows them to raise money in only a few ways, but they’ve been taking much of the blame for homeowners’ ever-escalating bills.
“We’re not overtaxed, we’re over property-taxed,” Whitley, a Hurst Republican, told the Star-Telegram Editorial Board this week.
His perspective is important, because this issue is not going away. If anything, it feels like we’re nearing a breaking point over property taxes and how Texas pays for public education.
Like the accountant he is, Whitley lays out a numbers-heavy argument. Here’s the crux of it: Texas is a low-tax state overall, ranking 37th in government revenue as a share of overall personal income, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. But it’s heavily reliant on property taxes, particularly to fund schools, and other streams of income have lagged. Consider the gasoline tax, which hasn’t been raised in 20 years.
The state’s share of school funding declined over decades. Lawmakers have tried to address that in recent years, but the burden of funding schools remains heavily on local property owners.
As property taxes have gone up and up and up, political pressure has intensified, especially from small-government conservative groups such as Empower Texans.
It’s been obvious for a while that state leaders have seen local governments as a relief valve for that pressure. But it was laid bare when House Speaker Dennis Bonnen was caught on tape, in a conversation with Empower Texans chief Michael Quinn Sullivan, using a vulgarity to mock city and county officials.
“They want to concentrate power in Austin to make it much easier to choke down local government,” Whitley said. “They’re more libertarian than Republican.”
BUT NOT ATTACKING SCHOOLS
There’s one more political consideration: Lawmakers don’t generally pick fights with their school districts. Voters like their schools, and school activities, particularly sports, are a focal point for many Texas communities.
But cities and counties? A typical taxpayer’s interaction with those governments is often frustrating and expensive. And politicians know how to pick a target.
Whitley’s preferred agenda to fix all this is intriguing, if fuzzy. Most of all, he wants flexibility, pointing to legislation this year that would have let counties levy a small sales tax to reduce property tax bills. With a one-cent sales tax, the judge said, the county could eliminate property taxes used to fund regular operations.
He’s also on the warpath about property tax exemptions, which chip away at the base of overall revenue. Some, like those for elderly homeowners, may be worthwhile public policy, but Whitley would like lawmakers to weigh eliminating them all, or at least setting them to expire and be reconsidered.
Texas isn’t headed for an income tax anytime soon, and Whitley notes that the lack of one has been a competitive advantage that has fueled our growth. But, he argues, “if we don’t do something about property taxes, it will be as big a deterrent” to growth as an income tax would.
APPRAISALS ARE A MESS
And he recognizes that the property appraisal system needs serious work, including perhaps real estate sales-price disclosure that would remove some of the mystery of what homes are really worth on the market.
It’s more dire than that: No real relief is possible when property values in urban areas increase so dramatically every year.
That points to the inconvenient truth about property taxes: Appraisal growth has let policymakers at every level off the hook. Governments have boosted spending while crowing about keeping tax rates in check, leaving homeowners frustrated at sharply rising property-tax bills.
It can’t go on like this. Next time there’s a recession and sales tax collections dip, the state will be hard-pressed to keep up the commitment lawmakers made to school funding this year. Whitley’s proposals are among a long list of things that will have to be on the table to make sense of the property tax burden.
Ultimately, the public wants two things most: Low taxes and strong schools. In boom times, it can have both, at least for a while. But when that’s no longer feasible, the finger-pointing that has Whitley and other local leaders so agitated may only increase.
This story was originally published December 5, 2019 at 12:56 PM.
