Ten mayors of North Texas: Austin's property tax cap plan could hurt cities 

We, the undersigned mayors, are privileged to represent some of the safest, fastest-growing, most desirable cities in the country. We work to effectively run our cities with consideration of the needs today, while preparing for tomorrow.

With record growth comes rising property tax bills, a financial burden we are all committed to addressing. But fast-moving legislation in Austin could threaten our ability to respond to your needs, especially when it comes to the most important matter we all face, funding our police and fire departments.

Today, state law prohibits our property tax revenues from rising by more than 8% per year. If taxes do rise more quickly than that, voters have the ability to call for a “rollback” election. The current proposals in Austin, House Bill 2 and Senate Bill 2, would lower what’s known as the “rollback rate” to 2.5% and would force an automatic election for voters to decide whether to allow the increase. This will not work, both practically and mathematically.

This cap figure is not manageable because our costs to serve you, our constituents, are rising at a higher rate than 2.5%. Even if we were to keep our services, like public safety, exactly the same from year to year, the costs of providing those same services would increase by more than 2.5% year over year.

Imposing such an arbitrary and restrictive cap is not an effective way to run a major business, and it is certainly not an effective way to run our cities.

As we grow, you ask us to provide new quality of life resources, such as senior centers, libraries, parks and trails. Most importantly, you ask us to hire more police officers and firefighters, and to provide more and improved transportation networks.

For the past few months, we have worked in a collaborative manner with state leaders to come to a reasonable cap figure on property tax revenue that protects our constituents’ pocketbooks without threatening our ability to ensure public safety and quality infrastructure and to provide basic services to an ever-growing number of constituents.

We are committed to continuing conversations with state leaders to find a solution. We appreciate them welcoming us to their offices and listening to our points of view.

Among our key points:

• If the Legislature insists on imposing a punitive revenue cap, it must allow exemptions for public safety, roads and other basic priorities that the city and state share. (In Dallas, for example, nearly 60% of the city's general fund budget goes to public safety, including 100% of the city's property tax revenue and nearly 30% of sales tax revenue). HB2 and SB2 do not include those critical considerations.
  
  

• Because we currently set our budgets in September, after the deadline to call a November election, the state's proposal wouldn't practically work. We have yet to hear from any supporters of these bills how our cities are to expedite our budgeting process in order to make the August deadline to call a November election. Further, we are unclear on how our cities would operate in the interim between the Oct. 1 start of the fiscal year and the November election.
  
  

• The demands put on our growing cities from the state have also been incremental. We are obliged to provide matching city resources to the state's investment in things like new highways and economic development grants coming from state legislators. This must also be taken into consideration in formulating a reasonable cap.
  
  

• A cap that is too restrictive would hurt our bond ratings, making it more expensive to borrow much-needed funds, which in effect is a stealth tax to our citizens.
  
  

• The Dallas region is one of the great growth engines for the state and country. Slowing that growth hurts the state as a whole.
  
  

• Current homestead, senior and disabled exemptions are the single greatest way cities can provide tax relief to its residents.  The restrictive nature of the current SB and HB proposals could lead cities to rescind this tax relief for fear of compromising critical public safety and infrastructure needs.

This is a complicated issue and we are committed to continuing the conversation in Austin. We need your help. Contact your legislators and tell them that public safety and basic needs must be protected. Encourage them to craft a solution with local elected officials, not against them. We want to be part of the solution.

If we are to continue the progress that has put North Texas on the map nationally and around the world, we must get this right. This proposal would threaten the quality of life that makes our region so strong.

Mike Rawlings                                                                     

Curtistene Smith McCowan 

Barry L. Gordon

Robert C. Dye 

Lori Barnett Dodson

Ron Jensen 

Rick Stopfer

George Fuller 

Harry LaRosiliere 

Paul Voelker