Law makes it tougher to raise property taxes
For almost any elected official, a $100 million item funded by taxpayer money is a big deal.
So we sat up when state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, took credit for stopping such a Dallas tax increase. Bettencourt said in an Aug. 24 press release: “Stopping a $100 million ... tax increase will be a record that will stand for some time.”
We wondered if indeed a Bettencourt-backed change in law stopped the described hike.
Bettencourt, who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Property Tax Reform and Relief, said that during the 2015 legislative session, he offered a revision to a measure authored by state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe. The adopted tweak, Bettencourt said, imposed a higher voting threshold for “local taxing units to assess property tax increases in their jurisdictions.” And, the release indicated, the Dallas school board recently failed to approve the described tax hike because advocates didn’t clear the higher threshold.
We checked: In 2015, Creighton authored and Bettencourt amended Senate Bill 1760, which was signed into law by Gov. Greg
Abbott on June 15, 2015, and became law on Jan. 1.
The Texas Association of School Boards spells out how a tax ratification election works: “Texas law requires school districts to calculate two taxes rates — the effective tax rate and the rollback tax rate . ... Generally, if a school board adopts a tax rate above its rollback tax rate, it must hold an election to ratify that rate.”
The association’s guidance continues: “If a majority of the votes cast in the election favor the proposition to approve the rate, then the tax rate for the current year is adopted by the board. If the proposition is not approved, the board may not adopt a rate higher than the rollback rate.”
But before the question can get to voters, thanks to the new state law, it takes a 60 percent vote from the school board to put it on a ballot. Voters may then approve the tax increase with a majority vote in an election. Through 2015, state law required simple majority votes of the school board and voters alike.
So, what exactly happened in Dallas? On Aug. 19, the nine-member Dallas Independent School Board voted on whether to ask Dallas County residents to consider a 13 cent property tax increase, which would exceed the rollback rate and which supporters said would raise about $104 million to fund early childhood education programs and other initiatives in the district.
Five trustees voted to put the question on the November ballot, and four trustees voted against it. The 5-4 vote didn’t meet the 60 percent supermajority threshold, per the new law. Residents in Dallas school district won’t see the tax increase question on their ballots in November.
Miguel Solis, a board member who voted to send the measure to voters, said the new threshold was single-handedly responsible for killing the measure. Voters likely would have approved the tax increase, though it would have been a tight race, he said. “We discussed (before the board’s vote) whether or not we would be able to pass this thing,” Solis told us by phone.
Since the law took effect, 33 Texas school boards have cleared the higher hurdle set in place at Bettencourt’s urging and sent the question of a tax increase to voters, according to the education website TexasISD.com. In all but three of those instances — in the Yantis, Marlin and Frisco districts — voters went on to approve the proposed hike, the website said.
Our ruling
Bettencourt said a change in law he carried stopped a $100 million tax increase in the Dallas school district.
You bet your calculator it did, even though the senator left unsaid that other school boards have been able to clear the higher threshold to send a tax increase proposal to voters.
We rate the claim True.