(The Center Square) – Dozens of House Republicans have called on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to veto a bill they argue will only help increase property taxes.
SB 974, filed by state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, passed the Texas House and Senate with bipartisan support and was sent to the governor on Sunday.
The bill would amend state law that prohibits employees of a taxing unit, including school board members, teachers and others working for a public school district, to serve on appraisal review boards (ARBs), the entity responsible for assessing property tax appraisal challenges.
Eckhardt argues ARBs are struggling to find qualified individuals to serve on them, can’t handle high volumes of taxpayer protests, or certify appraisal rolls to the applicable taxing unit, according to the bill analysis. Having teachers serve on the ARBs would help them earn extra money, help with the ARB backlog, and teachers don’t have decision-making authority on school district budgets or tax rates, she argued.
House Republicans who voted against the bill balked at the argument, arguing that school district employees serving on ARBs “constitutes a clear conflict of interest in the process of appraising home values.”
Forty-one state Republican representatives, led by Rep. Mike Olcott, called on Abbott to veto the bill, saying it “establishes a clear conflict of interest in which an employee of a political subdivision is directly involved in the appraisal of property in the district’s bounds. An employee who is paid by a school district should not be involved in the processes of determining the value of property that is taxed to generate funding for the district.”
Abbott previously vetoed similar legislation in the last legislative session.
The representatives called on the governor to veto the bill after legislative property tax reform initiatives have failed to curb escalating property tax increases.
Passing property tax relief bills was an emergency legislative priority of Abbott, which passed this session, which he says he will sign, The Center Square reported. They include increasing the homestead exemption, which critics argue won’t provide the relief Abbott and others claim it will.
Instead of returning the $24 billion surplus to taxpayers, the state legislature spent it, increased spending and the size of government, state Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Waxahachie, said. The budget the legislature passed is “the most bloated, liberal, budget ever written in the history of the state of Texas.”
“The men and women of the state of Texas wanted us to do just one thing this session … only one thing … to get the crushing burden of property taxes under control,” and the legislature “abjectly failed.”
Based on current projections and what’s in the budget, “the vast majority of property taxpayers and property tax bills in the state of Texas are going to go up,” Harrison said.
“This budget represents an absolute betrayal of the hard-working men and women of the state of Texas and they deserve better. There is no way a fiscally conservative Republican” could vote for it, he said, although the budget passed with bipartisan support, The Center Square reported.
