POLITIFACT
Mostly True: PolitiFact checks Andy Brown’s statement that “Travis County now has the highest urban county tax rate in Texas.”
It’s not unusual for a candidate to bemoan taxes. Still, Andy Brown’s claim in a mailer stopped us short: “Travis County now has the highest urban county tax rate in Texas.”
Brown, an Austin lawyer who Tuesday was defeated in his bid for Travis County judge, aired his statement under an arrow suggesting coun- ty tax bills steadily escalated while his Democratic primary opponent, Sarah Eckhardt, served on the Travis County Commissioners Court.
We’re focusing here on whether the county has the highest tax rate of the state’s urban counties.
Brown’s campaign manager, Jim Wick, told us the campaign compared the 2012 total property tax rate for Travis County with the rate in other counties that are home to the state’s five largest cities.
Wick included a chart indicating that in this subset, the Travis County rate of $0.5001 per $100 of property valuation exceeded the rates in Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar and El Paso counties. Brown’s chart indicates that El Paso County had the next-highest rate, $0.40887 per $100 valu- ation.
“Since there is no statutory definition of an urban county, we defined it as a county that has a ‘big city’ in it that is often compared to other big cities around Texas,” Wick told us.
We took our own, broader look. Online, the Texas Association of Counties drew on data collected by the state comptroller’s office to create a chart listing the “general fund property tax rates” for every Texas county for 1996 through 2012. Among the 15 most populous counties, the chart and our own Web research suggested that in 2012 and 2013, Travis County had the second-highest total property tax rate of all counties — topped only by Hidalgo County, which is home to McAllen, near the Texas-Mexico border. Among these 15 counties, Travis’ neighbor Williamson County had the third-highest 2013 rate, $0.49029 per $100 valuation.
Travis County’s rates in 2012 and 2013 far outpaced the total rates in the state’s
four more populous counties. In this subgroup, the next-closest 2013 rate — $0.40021 per $100 valuation — was levied by the most populous county, Harris.
We noticed another wrinkle in that Travis County has long had one of the highest tax rates among the urban counties. There wasn’t a change in this respect in Eckhardt’s time as a commissioner.
Finally, it’s worth noting that however the county’s tax rate compares with others, that does not tell the full story of property taxes. Each local resident’s tab includes taxes collected by multiple governmental entities, including cities and a school district. In addition, property values vary by county and affect how much residents actually pay.
Our ruling:
Brown said Travis County now has the highest urban county tax rate in Texas.
Travis County had the second-highest total property tax rate of the state’s 15 most populous counties in 2012 and 2013, we found, also levying the highest rate of the state’s seven most populous counties.
But in contrast to Brown’s message, Travis County’s tip-top ranking isn’t new. The county’s rate has exceeded the rates of more populous counties every year since 1996.
We rate this claim, which lacked these clarifications, as Mostly True.