TX House Olcott: Property Tax Relief of 89th TX Legislature -- should have been more.
- Manager
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
Summary: Report from Mike Olcott, House Rep. for Texas House District 60, which includes Willow Park. "Texas House passed Senate Bill 4 (SB 4) which will increase the homestead exemption [from $100,000] to $140,000 for most homeowners. I offered a very simple amendment [to] increase the homestead exemption to $160,000. Texas is sitting on a $24B surplus that belongs to the taxpayers..". SB4 and the current budget only utilizes $6.5B for property tax relief.
• Latest Update: 28 May, 2025
• Note: Willow Park Civics is about Willow Park but is NOT associated with or managed by the City of Willow Park -- or any other government office or government official. Please contact your elected government representative with questions or directed comments.
Property Tax Relief In The Texas House
[In .pdf.]
Dear Supporter and Friend,
Last week, the Texas House passed Senate Bill 4 (SB 4) which will increase the homestead exemption to $140,000 for most homeowners. Currently, the homestead exemption is $100,000.
Although this increase will provide some relief, it could have been much greater.
The State of Texas is sitting on a $24 billion surplus that belongs to the taxpayers. SB 4 and the current budget only utilizes $6.5 billion in newly appropriated money to provide property tax relief.
I offered a very simple amendment to SB 4 that would have increased the homestead exemption to $160,000.
As you can hear in the video, the author of SB 4, Rep Morgan Meyer, made a motion to table my amendment which is a parliamentary procedure commonly used to prevent a vote on an amendment. Thus, anyone voting “Yea” to table is against the amendment. Anyone voting “Nay” supports the amendment.
Unfortunately, only 28 Republicans (red) voted for (against tabling) my amendment to further increase property tax relief! Even 7 Democrats (blue) supported it.
The good news though is that a $140,000 homestead exemption passed.
I want to remind y’all that the major culprits in soaring property taxes are the various taxing entities (eg school boards, city councils, hospital districts etc) that set the tax rates. When appraisal values increase, these entities have the option to lower the tax rate to a level referred to as the “No New Revenue Rate” such that the taxing entity brings in the same revenue as the previous cycle.
Unfortunately, they rarely lower the rate.
[Willow Park is planning to increase the property tax rate for 2024 - 2025. Willow Park Civics Blog, posted 19 August 2024]
Citizens upset with their property taxes need to show up at the public meetings of these taxing entities when they are discussing their budgets (usually in July and August) and insist they implement the “No New Revenue Rate”.
Meanwhile, I will continue to fight at the State level to provide property tax relief.
For Texas and our Nation,
Mike Olcott
(817) 727-1869
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