Property Tax Reductions: Senate Bill 1 and Hurricane Harvey

REDNews Interviews Senator Paul Bettencourt for an update

BY MICHAEL PAVIA

Senate Bill 1
Senate Bill 1 (SB 1), is proposed legislation allowing for property tax rate elections if county property tax revenues exceeded 4% of what was taken in the year before. Basically, as values go up,
SB1 proposes to roll back tax rates to provide property tax relief. SB1 proposed to decrease the rollback rate from the current 8% to 4%. The Texas Senate endorsed SB 1. Members from the Texas
House and Senate met in a special session on July 26th to vote on the rollback. According to Senator Bettencourt, Speaker of the House Joe Straus was unwilling to appoint a conference committee so the bill was defeated.

Per Lieutenant Governor Patrick, “Whenever the Senate convenes again, either a special or regular session, it is our intention to pass that bill one more time. There will be a lot of reform measures
associated with it, as well. Governor Abbott is supportive and is hopeful that it will pass.”

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