Once again, Texas lawmakers did their part to provide more property tax relief during this legislative session. Unfortunately, local governments are already making up for it by proposing multi-million dollar bonds, to get taxpayer dollars. Even in McAllen, where the ISD wants a $290 million dollar bond.
"It's because the Texas legislature did very little to rein in this bad behavior" said James Quintero, policy director with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, "And because of this pernicious cycle the average homeowners tax bill continues to go up, even though the legislature has promised relief year after year."
So, while the property tax relief is nice, without local debt reform, there isn't any relief at all for Texans.
"Despite the best efforts of conservatives, the legislature did not move on very aggressive debt reforms, like instituting a new local debt limit" Quintero told KTRH, "And what that has signaled to a lot of liberal local governments is that it's quite all right to continue overconsuming public debt, burying voters in billions and billions of dollars of new bond debt."
It's something we are seeing here in Houston. The big question now is, will there be local debt reform passed next session? Or possibly if Governor Abbott calls a 'special' session this year.