Do not forget that your local cities, counties, schools, hospital districts, and other local governments are debating and setting their budgets for next year now. The useless press runs stories on “budgets” and often doesn’t communicate clearly to you that included is how much of a property tax increase you’ll be slapped with.
Cheryl Johnson, the tax assessor for Galveston County, pointed out to reporters for the Houston Chronicle that many local jurisdictions are trying to claim that the WuFlu pandemic allows them to ignore SB2, the new property tax reform, and go ahead and raise your taxes way over 3.5% and deny your right to have a vote on such.
“We’re fairly conservative down here in Galveston County on spending issues, but if any (city) wanted to say, ‘Well there’s a disaster, COVID-19 is a disaster,’ I’m of the opinion that COVID-19 is not the type of disaster that would warrant the disaster provision of Senate Bill 2,” Johnson said.
Instead you get comments about how the tax rate compares to the tax rate of the previous year which is meaningless and fundamentally ignorant reporting.
Worse than abuse of SB2 and the new protections for voters it provides is how muddled, how unclear the reporting is on proposed taxes. Most stories never mention the Effective Tax Rate and yet it is that number, that percentage, to which you must compare any newly proposed tax rate to know if such proposal is a tax increase, decrease, or keeping it the same.
Instead you get comments about how the tax rate compares to the tax rate of the previous year which is meaningless and fundamentally ignorant reporting. Local officials often want to keep you in the dark but your local media is supposed to shine the light on those actions. Too often on property taxes they do not and it is costly ignorance.
El Paso City Council votes to keep property tax rate at same level – a perfect example of reporting so ignorant that it expressly misleads people. First sentence: “El Paso homeowners struggling finacially during the pandemic can rest assured their property taxes will not go up.” Then later in the story you get this: “Even keeping the same tax rate, the city is slated to get nearly $5 million in new revenue as property values went up by four percent,…” How stupid can a media outlet and its employees be?!
Attention: You cannot count on press to warn you of local property tax increases
Cheryl Johnson, the tax assessor for Galveston County, pointed out to reporters for the Houston Chronicle that many local jurisdictions are trying to claim that the WuFlu pandemic allows them to ignore SB2, the new property tax reform, and go ahead and raise your taxes way over 3.5% and deny your right to have a vote on such.
“We’re fairly conservative down here in Galveston County on spending issues, but if any (city) wanted to say, ‘Well there’s a disaster, COVID-19 is a disaster,’ I’m of the opinion that COVID-19 is not the type of disaster that would warrant the disaster provision of Senate Bill 2,” Johnson said.
Instead you get comments about how the tax rate compares to the tax rate of the previous year which is meaningless and fundamentally ignorant reporting.
Worse than abuse of SB2 and the new protections for voters it provides is how muddled, how unclear the reporting is on proposed taxes. Most stories never mention the Effective Tax Rate and yet it is that number, that percentage, to which you must compare any newly proposed tax rate to know if such proposal is a tax increase, decrease, or keeping it the same.
Instead you get comments about how the tax rate compares to the tax rate of the previous year which is meaningless and fundamentally ignorant reporting. Local officials often want to keep you in the dark but your local media is supposed to shine the light on those actions. Too often on property taxes they do not and it is costly ignorance.
See my commentaries that well explain how property taxes work here: “See list of all past commentaries on property tax in Texas.”
Update: A perfect example of what I wrote about:
El Paso City Council votes to keep property tax rate at same level – a perfect example of reporting so ignorant that it expressly misleads people. First sentence: “El Paso homeowners struggling finacially during the pandemic can rest assured their property taxes will not go up.” Then later in the story you get this: “Even keeping the same tax rate, the city is slated to get nearly $5 million in new revenue as property values went up by four percent,…” How stupid can a media outlet and its employees be?!