Vital Issues for the Future of Texas

Story and photos contributed by Rep. Terry Wilson R-TX20

It is an honor to serve you as Texas State Representative for the 88th Texas Legislature. The regular and special sessions delivered on vital issues for the future of Texas. The 2024-25 Texas budget will invest $50.4B in public education, $42.9B for public health, $9.3B in infrastructure investments, $5.1B for border security, and $5B in property tax relief from legislation passed in the 2019 legislative session.

I was honored to serve as Chairman of the House Committee on Defense & Veterans’ Affairs. The committee oversaw legislation to support veterans’ mental health, help military and veteran families obtain and transfer occupational licenses, and improve the position of Texas’s military bases for future Department of Defense base realignment, benefiting the Texas economy, military families, and their surrounding communities, all while supporting our national defense.

There is still work to be done, and you play a significant role. To protect the rights and authority of the people of Texas, the Texas Constitution requires that certain types of legislation receive authorization from the voters before becoming law.

This year, 14 propositions will appear on the ballot addressing funding water, broadband, higher education infrastructure, and providing $12.7 billion in property taxes back to taxpayers.

When a bill comes up for a vote on the floor of the House, I always have a summary on hand with information on what the bill would do along with the arguments for and against it. In this article I wanted to highlight five of the proposed amendments I believe are of particular importance and have my wholehearted support.

Proposition 4 Property Tax Relief

Property taxes are the main funding mechanism for local governments in Texas. Every year, the chief appraiser for your county asseses the value of your home or business to find its “market value,” or how much it would be worth on the market if you sold the property.

The chief appraiser then checks if there are any limitations on how much their official assessment of a property’s value can increase from one year to the next, regardless of how much the market value may have risen. Once that cap has been applied, the resulting value is known as the “assessed value.” These re strictions are typically percentage limitations; e.g., assessed values of homesteaded properties are limited to a 10 percent increase each year.

Once the assessed value has been found, the appraisal district applies any deductions or credits, reducing their assessment of the property to the final “taxable Value”. For example, homestead properties currently receive a $40,000 exemption from school districts, causing their “taxable value” to be $40,000 lower than their “assessed value” for the calculation of the taxes owed to their local school district.

When your local school district builds its budget, staff use a formula set by the legislature to determine how much funding they should receive based on the number of students attending schools in the district, plus the various needs of those students that make their education more expensive (e.g., CTE courses require expensive equipment used for student training that are not required for standard textbook-only courses).

I wholeheartedly support Proposition 4. These changes would save the average homeowner $1,357 per year on school M&O taxes (based on the $331,000 median home price).

Once districts determine how much funding will be required according to the formulas, they calculate the revenue they could potentially collect from their maintenance and operations (M&O) property tax. In 2019, the 86th legislature capped M&O collections so ISDs cannot collect more than 2.5 percent more money in the current year than in the previous year from the set of properties they taxed that year.

If more money is needed than the district can collect, the state will make up the difference out of “general revenue,” the main pool of funds the state collects from sales taxes and other state revenue. When the state wants to lower the level of property taxes charged by an ISD, we change the formula to replace specific property tax revenue with general revenue funds, and the school district lowers its M&O rate accordingly.

As a result, the school district gets the same amount of funds, but the taxpayers pay less in property taxes. This process is known as “compression,” since it is lowering or compressing the M&O tax rate down as long as the state continues to provide the funding needed to replace the reduced property tax revenue for the school district.

I wholeheartedly support Proposition 4. These changes would save the average homeowner $1,357 per year on school M&O taxes (based on the $331,000 median home price). It will provide businesses with much needed relief from unexpected tax bills if the value of their property increases in a short span of time, and it will allow voters a voice on the board of appraisers who determine the taxable values of their homes. I encourage all voters in Williamson County to make sure they get to the polls to support this measure.

The establishment of the Public University Fund (PUF) has proven to be one of the most effective and beneficial decisions in the history of higher education in Texas. In 1876, concerned about their ability to make biannual appropriations for the University of Texas and Texas A&M University, the 15th Texas Legislature set aside a parcel of land to provide for the needs of the universities through rents, sales, farming, and whatever other means of return the investment managers could glean. That land turned out to be rich with mineral and oil deposits, which provided our higher education systems with the revenue needed to become what they are today.

PROPOSITION 4 WOULD MAKE THE FOLLOWING CHANGES TO THE PROPERTY TAX SYSTEM IN TEXAS

•  Increase the Homestead Exemption from $40,000 to $100,000

•  Ensure homestead exemptions are applied equally to all homestead owners.

•  Authorize the Legislature to provide for $12.7 billion in new M&O compression

•  Provide non-residential properties a 20 percent cap on increases in their Assessed Value

•  Limit the term length of appraisal board members to four years in counties with a population over 75,000 and allow positions on appraisal boards to be publicly elected.

•  Exempt appropriations for M&O compression from counting towards the state’s “Population + Inflation” spending cap on general revenue, simplifying the process for providing more tax relief in the future.

Proposition 5 Texas University Fund

Despite the overwhelming success of the 1876 PUF, we have yet to create a similar model for the public institutions of higher education created since then, all of whom receive their state support directly from general revenue funds collected primarily from state sales tax.

While no funding system can ever expect to literally “strike oil,” the proposed Texas University Fund would take us a step closer to relieving the burden of providing for vital portions of public higher education institutions from taxpayers. Specifically the Texas University Fund will provide resources for high-quality research at our universities that have raised at least $20 million in funding through private or federal research contracts, and have awarded a three-year rolling average of at least 45 research doctoral degrees per academic year.

Research universities are among the most powerful drivers of economic growth. Researchers set down roots and work to develop new technologies. Manufacturers that want to build products based on those new technologies want to locate near the people who know the technology best, bringing new jobs with them and helping fund education opportunities that keep the cycle of technological and economic progress moving.

I support the Texas University Fund because it will save taxpayers money in the long run and help grow the capacity of our state for economic and technological growth.

Proposition 6 Texas Water Fund

Diminishing water resources are the single largest barrier to Texas becoming the most populated and prosperous state in the nation. The Texas State Demographer anticipates that by 2050 Texas will eclipse California with a population of 54.4 million, nearly doubling our current 29.6 million in just 27 years. Providing water for that level of growth will require a great deal of investment and infrastructure.

Proposition 6 would provide for the creation of two new funds, the “New Water Supply for Texas Fund” and the “Texas Water Fund” to help provide funding for the water project Texas will require to meet those needs. The “Texas Water Fund” will provide local

governments with low interest loans to finance water infrastructure projects needed to provide their populations with water. The “New Water Supply for Texas Fund” will be used by the Texas Water Development Board to secure and provide seven million new acre-feet of water supply for Texas by 2034.

Without a sufficient water supply, nothing else we do to grow our state and provide for future prosperity will matter. Proposition 6 is essential for the future of Texas, plain and simple.

Proposition 8 Broadband Infrastructure Fund

Business goes where there is infrastructure. As the cost of living and population density of Texas urban centers grows, the opportunity for new industry to locate farther out increases, but only if there is infrastructure for them to be able to operate effectively and for their workforce to be able to live there and thrive.

Rural areas of Texas are brimming with this potential with inexpensive land, good community values, and lower cost of living. However, any business looking to locate outside of urban areas would be hesitant to start operating in an area without access to modern information infrastructure.

Proposition 8 would create the Texas Broadband Infrastructure fund, which will invest $1.5 billion into rural broadband infrastructure over 10 years. Establishing this fund will also allow Texas to retrieve tax dollars paid to Washington DC via the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, which will match $4 for every $1 Texas invests in rural broadband.

Proposition 9 • COLA for Retired Teachers

Texas Retired Teachers have long deserved the same type of Cost-ofLiving Adjustments (COLA) received by other state retirees and social security recipients. Rising inflation and cost of living combined with restrictions preventing them from returning to work after retirement left many retired teachers struggling to choose between paying for necessary medication and feeding themselves.

Over the last six years, the legislature has worked diligently to improve the health of the Teacher Retirement System Trust Fund. In 2019, we took the fund from insolvency to being able to reliably provide current levels of benefits for the next 30 years. In 2021, we improved the fund’s health to prepare to provide a COLA and a single 13th check for those in greatest need. Finally, in 2023, the changes to the funds and levels of investment have finally reached levels that allow for a small, regular, COLA that will help adjust for inflation so that their pension does not evaporate just because the value of the dollars they are being paid goes down over time.

We owe it to our retired teachers to uphold our end of the bargain and provide the value in their pensions that they earned over a lifetime of providing Texas with the world-class workforce we have today.

If you would like a version of this information you can take with you to vote at the ballot box, or if you have questions, please contact HD20. (512) 463-0309 • terry.wilson@house.texas.gov.

ELECTION DAY FOR THESE PROPOSITIONS IS NOVEMBER 7

EARLY VOTING ENDS NOVEMBER 3

MAIL-IN BALLOTS MUST BE RECEIVED BY TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7