Tag Archives: Austin affordability

A Big Thanks To Council Member Don Zimmerman

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By Bill Oakey – June 6, 2015

In the City of Austin, the name Don Zimmerman means different things to different people. Whenever I bring up the name, I get a variety of strange looks and interesting expressions. I suppose there could easily be more than one Don Zimmerman here, since Austin has become a pretty big city. The Don that I know best currently represents District 6 on the Austin City Council. Before he was elected last November, he earned a reputation as a fighter for the taxpayers, even occasionally taking his battles to court.

When I walked into his office at City Hall recently, I came prepared with documents and notes to support my affordability proposals for the upcoming City Budget. We did not discuss party politics. It was a straightforward dialog about longstanding problems with the budget. The most amusing thing he showed me is the City’s latest “Budget in a Box.” It actually does come delivered in a box. This cleverly marketed product could be easily mistaken for some kind of X-Series video game console kit, complete with hardware and software manuals and a DVD. It looks colorful and exciting from the outside:

Budget box

City of Austin Budget In a Box

But to put it mildly, Don Zimmerman was not impressed. The first thing he showed me came as no surprise, but it ticked me off nonetheless. Get ready for this everybody…we should have known it was coming. The wonderful news from the Budget In a Box is that the City is forecasting a slight decrease in the property tax rate!  Yes, once again we are not being told the Truth-In-Taxation percentage of the estimated tax increase. That is why the first item on my reform list has always been Truth In Taxation. Because of the high property tax appraisals this year, the tax rate could go down slightly and we would still see a pretty stiff tax increase, especially those people whose appraisals have hit the 10% cap. The truthful amount of the City’s tax increase would be stated as the increase above the “effective rate.” That is the amount that would generate the same amount of revenue as the City received last year. By law, they can raise the effective tax rate by as much as 8% without triggering a rollback election by citizen petition. Last year’s tax rate changed by only a fraction of a penny, but the increase above the effective rate was 3.8%.

Meanwhile, back in Don Zimmerman’s office, we looked at the chart on Page 57 of the Five Year Financial Forecast. I will not attach an audio recording of the words that may have slipped out when we saw the huge chart of tax, utility and utility add-on fee increases. You can read it yourself right here. For a “median-value home” of $221,086 the bottom line projected increase is $18.53 per month. The tax portion of that is only $7.05. But here’s the problem. The estimated tax amount does not include any new programs or changes made by the staff or the City Council. And the chart does not take into consideration whether your home saw a double digit tax appraisal increase. So, the tax increase that you would actually see on your bill would most likely be considerably higher. And, by the way, how many people do you know who live in a “median-value home” that is appraised that low?

To summarize my meeting with Mr. Zimmerman, he told me that he supports my affordability proposals. And he mentioned one of his own that I will explain in detail in another posting. We all have a big hill to climb between now and the end of the budget season. It will not be a stroll on the beach, like the Beach Boys portrayed in their 1974 album, Endless Summer.

As for Don Zimmerman, some of you may have him confused with that other guy out there that some people think is “way out there.” The one that brings to mind flying saucers, conspiracy theories, and tables levitating to the sound of voices from the dead. That is not the Don Zimmerman that I talked to down at City Hall. But, I don’t want you to leave this blog disappointed if you came here looking for a pathway to adventures from another world. Just grab a beer or a glass of something else and check out this video.

Special Event Fee Waivers – Other Texas Cities Prefer Hotel Occupancy Tax

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By Bill Oakey – June 4, 2015

The quest to eliminate taxpayer-subsidized special event fee waivers may get a boost, thanks to the discovery of a little-publicized City Manager’s Power Point presentation from mid-2014. This presentation followed the May 1st passage of City Council Resolution # 20140501-036, sponsored by Kathie Tovo, directing the City Manager to review alternative funding sources for special event fee waivers. One specified option was to consider using the Hotel Occupancy Tax. A subsequent information request from then Mayor Pro-Tem Sheryl Cole revealed that Austin’s Hotel Occupancy Tax revenues have galloped from $51 million in 2012 to an estimated $70+ million in 2014.

The newly discovered Power Point presentation should put to rest any fleeting suggestion that Austin cannot or should not use Hotel Occupancy Tax funds to replace millions of dollars in fee waivers. This statement appears on Slide # 17: “To date we have researched and found 30 cities in Texas that currently utilize other funding sources for special events that qualify; most utilizing a percentage of HOT Funds administered by the Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB).” Cities cited in the presentation include Cedar Park, Dallas, Georgetown, Giddings, Fredericksburg and Round Rock. You can download the Power Point presentation here.

From an affordability standpoint, here’s a revelation that should catch everyone’s attention. On Slide # 8, charts show that in 2013 the City granted $1,146,127 in fee waivers. But somehow they wound up with a funding gap of $3,110,104 that year. The event costs for all City departments added up to $6,703,457, while fees collected only came to $3,593,353. (The City Transportation Dept. reported the 2013 funding gap to be $4,256,000, with the total five-year deficit from 2009-2013 coming to $10,694,000).

At the City Manager’s Power Point session, Slide # 2 states that an alternate funding proposal for special events was due to his office on July 24th, and to the City Council on August 7th (the date specified in the Council resolution). We now know that something transpired at City Hall between May and November of 2014. Marc Ott’s November 7th memo signaled a new direction for responding to the issue, as well as a new one-year-later deadline. They are now pursuing a plan for multi-year agreements with special event organizers. These carry the potential for locking in the taxpayers to continuous fee waiver subsidies. The whole notion of considering the Hotel Occupancy Tax as an alternate funding source disappeared down the rabbit hole.

But now it is on its way back out…Stay tuned!

Rabbit Hole

Special Event Fee Waivers: Will The Old Guard Please Sit Down, Will The New Guard Please Stand Up!

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tererBy Bill Oakey – June 3, 2015

For the past several years, various citizen groups, City Commissions and the Austin American-Statesman editorial board have called for doing away with taxpayer funded fee waivers for large for-profit special events. This endless stream of subsidies adds up to somewhere around $2 million per year. Of course, the granddaddy of them all is South By Southwest.

The Old Guard message has always been the same. That these big festivals bring in tourists and boost the economy. They claim that the fee waivers are a “sound investment.” In reality, they put a strain on the taxpayers that has persisted for far too long.  At the biggest events, public safety is severely compromised, with police shortages in neighborhoods citywide. It’s time for the New Guard at City Hall to stand up and tell these event promoters that we just can’t afford it anymore.

The question comes down to priorities. If the City insists on not making the for-profit event companies pay their own fees, then they could easily fund the subsidies with the Hotel Occupancy Tax. The revenues from that fund have ballooned from $51 million in 2012 to over $70 million in 2014.

The Old Guard prefers to restrict every penny of the Hotel Occupancy Tax for tourism and convention activities. Their lobbyists have erected a wall of resistance around City Hall. But what are the community’s priorities? Do we have a crisis in Austin with low tourism rates, or do we see new hotels popping up like mushrooms? A couple of million dollars per year would be a minor tick to the tourism fund, but it would certainly help offset the tax burden when combined with other affordabilty reforms.

In May of last year, Council Member Kathie Tovo got a resolution passed directing the City Manager to review usage of the Hotel Occupanct Tax and ticket surcharges as alternatives to the event subsidies. His report was due last August and was specifically timed for last summer’s budget talks. That deadline passed and a new one for this August emerged. in a Long Term Analysis of Special Events, City Manager Marc Ott proposed a new plan that completely sidesteps the Tovo resolution. He wants to establish multi-year City agreements with the major event organizers. If the watchdogs amongst us are not careful, the taxpayers could easily get locked into muti-year fee waiver subsidies.

Sometime between last May and November, the previous City Council heard from vested interests on the Music Commission and the Arts Commission that the Hotel Occupancy Tax should be off limits for special event fee waivers. But the new City Council is appointing brand new members to all boards and commissions. And here’s a parting thought. Lean closer and let me whisper a suggestion that has not appeared on any Council agenda or City Manager memo…Psst…Why not make the for-profit event owners PAY AT LEAST SOME OF THEIR OWN FEES? Sorry, that wasn’t a whisper, but I couldn’t help myself!

Here’s What You Can Do to Help

Use this single link to email the Mayor and all Council Members to ask for an end to the fee waiver subsidies. We can make positive changes if we look forward and we work hard enough. Will the Old Guard please sit down, and will the New Guard please stand up!

This Is Austin’s Wake-Up Call – The Wage Side Of Affordability

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By Bill Oakey – June 2, 2015

Many of us probably think we know something about Austin affordability. Just today I was reminded that “affordability” means different things to different organized civic groups. But let me tell you how I came to see it in way that has never quite hit me before. Never like this.

Please read the quotes below. Then, rub your eyes and see if they read the same way a second time. If this is going on all over Austin, then we have a bigger problem than many of us realized. It simply can’t be allowed to continue.

From the Austin Chronicle, May 29, 2015, Feedback, Page 8

On Wheatsville’s Wages

“I was hired as a deli clerk at Wheatsville in 1995 at the rate of $9.00 an hour. It’s sad that in 20 years that rate has not changed. The fact that the GM will not reveal his salary is ludicrous and very telling.” – Justin A.

“When I started working at Wheatsville in 2007, I started out at $8.50 and not $8.00 because I had a little experience. So Wheatsville stepped down from their starting pay in 1995, wow. Even with a promotion to a higher-paying position, I’m still not making much more than the new employees. The ‘I can’t afford to shop where I work thing is real.'” – Captain Happy

These comments are feedback to the Chronicle’s story, Is Something Rotten at Wheatsville Co-op? Well, here’s my little story. I wandered in there sometime around 1979. i picked up a can of peaches. The price was so exorbitantly high that I asked a salesperson if it could be a mistake. “Are you a Wheatsville member?’ he asked. When I told him no, he replied that the price for that can of fruit would be even higher for non-members. That is the beginning, the middle, and the end of my story about Wheatsville. I never stepped inside the place again.

Just recently, a professional hair stylist that I really liked asked if I would mind “modeling” for her at a hair salon just north of U.T. The manager asked if she could bring in a regular customer and cut his hair as a means of trying out for a job opening there. I had learned from this stylist about the cosmetology license that is required and the cost to renew it each year. Her appointment and the modeling thing never panned out, but the stylist did tell me one interesting thing. If she had been offered that job, it would have paid only minimum wage.

Somebody is making a whole hell of a lot of money in Austin, Texas. And off the people in Austin. But if those masses of little people ever get riled up enough to join forces and speak out with a united voice, something extraordinary might happen. Maybe a bunch of them did speak out when they went to the polls last November in the City Council election.

The news stories just keep coming – about unprecedented rent increases that don’t match up well with salaries and wages. Tax appraisals that jolt homeowners out of their socks, for the second or third year in a row. And on and on. So, here’s some food for thought. Consider two key phrases that you have heard recently at City Hall and that will surely come up again. “Tipping Point” and “Unmet Needs.” Lack of affordability has placed our City at the tipping point. That means that the people in power need to stop talking about it take some action.

The Regional Affordability Committee has agreed to do that by incorporating principles and concrete proposals into a strategic plan, and then working to get that plan implemented. I will be feeding proposals into their plan, as will several other experienced affordability advocates. But the wage side of affordability is something that must be dealt with to a large extent in the business community. People can only be pushed and squeezed for so long. Then something’s got to give. I leave it to folks with expertise in that realm to take on that problem aggressively.

Finally – that other phrase, “Unmet Needs.” The City staff who work up the annual budget never get as much funding as they would like. There is always a laundry list of items that come up short. Those are routinely labeled “unmet needs.” In other words, if taxes could be raised each year to the legal maximum, the City staff would be able to minimize their list of unmet needs. But the list is endless. It’s kind of like taking one step towards the door, then taking an infinite number of additional steps, with each one of those being only half the final distance to the door.

But guess what – in this era of the tipping point and post-tipping point, the City Council and the other taxing entities are about to discover a whole new type of unmet needs. And they’ll be hearing about it from all corners of Austin. Each one of us have our own budgets that keep getting smaller and smaller, just like all those halfway steps to the door.

We just need to raise our voices.

Dancing To The Taxpayer Blues

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By Bill Oakey – May 29, 2015

A long tall Texan got into his pickup truck and switched on the radio. He listened to the following commentary from a country music deejay down in Austin.

Now folks, I don’t get into politics on this show, but I heard about something the City Council said that I think you should know about. They were talking about an unlevel playing field for property taxes.  Something about the system that isn’t quite right.

Maybe they have a point.  Have you ever sat down in a Texas dance hall and tried to hold onto a beer when the table wasn’t level? Worse case scenario, you would spill some of that beer on your best friend’s wife, right after you danced to “The Last Cheater’s Waltz.” I think we need the City to level our taxes.

I have a nutty friend who spends a lot of time reading City financial reports. Darned if he didn’t tell me that the City Manager is promising once again to “hold the line on the tax rate.” Man, they’ve been pulling the wool over our eyes every year on that stuff. Willie Nelson, Norah Jones and Wynton Marsalis nailed it with the song, “Here We Go Again.” Isn’t there supposed to be some kind of truth in taxation?

The high taxes have priced people so far out into the suburbs that it’s a wonder more of them don’t fall Asleep at the Wheel while sitting in traffic. I can see why the character in George Strait’s song, “All My Ex’s Live in Texas” now hangs his hat in Tennessee. He couldn’t afford his Austin taxes.

And it keeps getting worse. The end of year tax deadline is not a whole lot of fun. In 1974, Merle Haggard released a sad but hopeful tune called, “If We Make It Through December.” He must have known what was coming down the pike in Austin.

All right folks, it’s time for me to get off my soapbox and get back to some more hit music. Here’s one I think you’ll enjoy called, “When I’m Under the Table, I’ll Be Over You.”

hat

City Council Unanimously Approves Commercial Tax Appraisal Challenge

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By Bill Oakey – May 28, 2015

In a historic move likely to elicit statewide attention, The Austin City Council on Thursday voted unanimously to proceed with a formal challenge of commercial property valuations to the Travis Central Appraisal District (TCAD). Several citizen speakers, including Leigh Murrin with Real Values for Texas and Vicki Totten with Austin Fair Tax spoke eloquently in favor of the challenge.

The rallying cry from both citizens and our Council Members this afternoon was all about fairness. In my view, this decidedly bold step will enable our City to shine a beacon for fairness across the state. Mayor Steve Adler summed up the sentiments when he stated that “Everyone here on the Council dais agrees that our appraisal system is broken.” What Austin has done will inspire other cities to sit up and take notice that the battle has begun. We all recognize that comprehensive tax reform must be done through the State Legislature. Although that task has seemed insurmountable in the past, we now find ourselves on a firm path toward that goal. People seeking to galvanize the spirits of taxpayers across the state have witnessed the lighting of the spark today. With a lot of hard work yet to come, our sights are already fixed on the 2017 legislative session.

Mayor Adler has signaled a strong desire for a spirit of cooperation among the various taxing jurisdictions impacted by today’s decision. Discussions are underway with various involved parties to ensure that each taxing entity is kept in the loop at every step of the process.  Earlier concerns expressed about potential delays in tax roll certifications and possible interruptions in revenue disbursements are being addressed quite satisfactorily. One solution being considered is to send estimated bills to taxpayers, so they can make their annual payments at the usual time and still claim their Federal income tax deductions.

We must all keep in mind, however, that the opponents of this action will be working every bit as hard to counter the success of our challenge. On that note, we are fortunate to have new City leadership with good experience and expertise. Mayor Adler, who brings many years of legal practice to the table, has established a cooperative tone at the outset. And by voting unanimously to support the appraisal challenge, the entire City Council approaches the endeavor on a united front.

Several City Council Members mentioned the compelling need to address affordability in Austin. They acknowledged that rapidly escalating tax appraisals are an oppressive burden for long-term residents, including many in our minority communities. It was also announced today that TCAD staff and City officials will work together over the next two weeks to take the necessary steps to ensure that the challenge does not impede the critical functions of each taxing authority. TCAD has assured everyone that no adverse effects will happen during that initial two-week period.

On Friday morning at 10:00 AM the Travis County Commissioners Court will meet in executive session to consider their role in Austin’s appraisal challenge.

What Happens When “The City Manager Is Directed To…” And He Doesn’t?

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By Bill Oakey – May 27, 2015

That just happened to be the burning question that woke me up this morning. And I certainly think it is a fair one to ask. Amongst the mountains of papers that lie nestled on office shelves and lurk in various cubbyholes down at City Hall are a multitude of City Council resolutions. These are very official-looking documents – the ones with all those “whereas” clauses. They even contain official-looking dates and signatures.

Many of them also contain the intriguing phrase, “The City Manager is directed to…” do a specified thing. And in many cases, he is given a specified deadline to carry out this directed task. I should have thought about that little piece of verbiage each time I emailed a City Council member during this past year, trying to follow up on affordability issues. It turns out that some of these official resolutions do not carry much weight.

Here is a case in point. Last year I blogged about the need to cease the preponderance of special event fee waivers being given away for years. The American-Statesman editorialized that the practice should be eliminated for South By Southwest, since they have received many millions in waived fees.  So last year on May 1st, Mayor Pro-Tem Kathie Tovo sponsored City Council Resolution # 20140501-036. This approved resolution called for reviewing alternate funding sources for special event fee waivers. Among those suggested were surcharges on ticket sales and using funds from the Hotel Occupancy Tax. As I mentioned in a recent blog post, the Hotel Occupancy Tax revenues have ballooned from $51 million in 2012 to over $70 million in 2014. So, I have included that source in my current round of affordability proposals. The taxpayers need relief.

Please take note of the last three “Whereas” clauses in the Tovo resolution. Each one begins with the phrase, “The City Manager is directed to.” The last one reads:

“The City Manager is directed to present the proposal for the special events fund and fee waiver process by August 7, 2014 to allow Council to consider the proposals as part of the City’s budget process.” Well, August 7, 2014 came and went and the City Manager’s response never came. My repeated attempts since then to obtain the status of this resolution have not yielded any results. Now we are bumping up against another annual budget process, and I have called upon the new City Council to consider not using local taxpayer funds for these fee waivers.

But What About the Larger Issue Here?

A few other questions have wandered across my mind this morning. Perhaps the City Council should think about them as well:

1. How many other pending resolutions are out there awaiting responses to “The City Manager is directed to…?” To help the Council members start their journey in pursuit of that question, I offer this Google search that they can cut and paste into a browser: Austin “The City Manager Is Directed to.” They can just click the link.

2. How about adopting a practice that all City Council resolutions be posted to a public webpage that contains the date, subject, text, required action deadline, and current status of all pending and future resolutions?

3. Without a firm policy in place to enforce the directives contained in City Council resolutions, why not consider gathering up all printed copies of them and directing them to the nearest recycle bin?

Come And Speak 4:00 PM Thursday At City Council On Tax Appraisal Challenge

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By Bill Oakey – May 26, 2015

The Austin City Council must decide by June 1st whether to launch a landmark challenge to the Travis Central Appraisal District over the undervalued commercial properties in this year’s tax appraisals. You can help convince them make the right decision to go forward with the appeal. Come to the City Council Chambers at 301 West 2nd Street, this Thursday May 28th. Bring your neighbors and friends. Email, text, Tweet and Facebook the link to this blog posting. We have obtained a 4:00 time certain for speakers on this topic, which is Item #4 on the agenda. You can sign up to speak, using the kiosks in the lobby of the Council Chambers anytime between now and Thursday’s meeting.

Please keep in mind that this is not an adversarial action against the TCAD appraisal officials. They have been very cooperative with our City Council members and City staff. This is the legally required process to correct major flaws caused by the Texas appraisal system. The law does not require sales price disclosure on either residential or commercial real estate transactions.

Here are some new developments on the Council’s pending decision on the appraisal challenge. Two major stumbling blocks could cause Travis County, AISD, or any of the other taxing entities in our area to oppose Austin’s challenge to TCAD. Both involve a potential delay in TCAD’s new certification of the tax rolls after the revised commercial appraisals have been calculated.

For one thing, taxpayers who usually make their payments to the Travis County Tax Office at the end of the year might lose the opportunity to do that, and then lose their Federal income tax deduction for this year. But a solution to that problem was discussed at Tuesday’s City Council Work Session. A plan is underway to allow taxpayers to pay an estimated tax by the end of the year and still use that for their Federal tax deduction. Then they would simply make a final supplemental payment once the new tax rolls are certified and final tax bill amounts are determined. With these tax receipts coming in, the taxing entities would not face a delay in receiving the revenues needed to fund their operations.

Plans are also being considered that might allow TCAD to certify the new tax rolls faster and shorten the delay period. City Council members are looking into whether each taxing entity could make a small contribution to TCAD and the Travis County Tax Office, so they could hire temporary workers to help them through the clerical work required to finish the new certification and get new tax notices sent out

We’ll see you in the City Council Chambers on Thursday afternoon. We are one step closer to ending the egregious inequity of undervalued commercial properties that has plagued residential taxpayers for too many years. For more information on the flawed Texas appraisal system, please visit Real Values for Texas at this link. Read their report and watch their excellent video.

City Report On Tax Appraisal Inequities Draws Outrage

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By Bill Oakey – May 21, 2015

On Tuesday May 19th, a blue ribbon panel of City and County officials and other top leaders addressed an emotional crowd at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Austin. The topic was property tax appraisals. The speaker lineup included:

Brigid Shea, Travis County Commissioner
Steve Adler, Mayor of Austin
Kathie Tovo, City of Austin Mayor Pro Tem
Bruce Elfant, Travis County Tax Assessor
Marya Crigler, Travis Central Appraisal District Chief Appraiser
Dick Lavine, Center for Public Policy Priorities
Leigh Murrin, Real Values for Texas

If you missed this event, please consider watching the full video here. It was highly informative, even if you thought you knew quite a bit about our tax appraisal system and how unjust it is. The combined factual and emotional impact is quite stunning. The City of Austin is considering filing a formal appeal of the undervalued commercial properties here in Austin. Estimates vary, but in many cases, large commercial buildings have been found to be undervalued by 40% or more.

On May 11th, the City released its detailed report on undervalued commercial properties. You can read the full report here. The panelists at the Tax Appraisal Forum discussed this blistering report, as well as details on the flawed tax appraisal system here in Texas. The cards are stacked so heavily against residential homeowners that the situation qualifies as a national disgrace. There are risks associated with the contemplated action by the City of filing a formal appeal to the Travis Central Appraisal District. The appeal could cause a delay in certifying this year’s tax rolls. Over 100 area taxing jurisdictions have been asked to weigh in on the appeal decision. But if the City indeed makes good on its formal challenge, the entire State of Texas would sit up and take notice. Fighting for justice can be a treacherous battle, just like any battle throughout history for a noble cause.

Affordability in Austin has reached an epic tipping point. You will see in the video of the panel discussion, that the citizens who spoke during the Q&A displayed emotions ranging from frustration to full-on anger. The appraisal inequities are only part of a bigger picture. Austin is growing at a breakneck speed, putting unprecedented pressure on home values and rents. Unlike businesses of all sizes, cities and counties do not carefully plan the pace of their growth. They do not add up the costs of all of their combined expansion plans that taxpayers go into debt and pay annual taxes to fund. It is more a matter of “build first and ask questions later.” That path, as everyone knows, can and often does result in spectacular boom and bust cycles. Perhaps we can convince our local officials to conduct a “Pre-Mortem” to determine how much we the citizens can realistically afford to pay for the cost of growth. And at what pace that growth can be deemed to be “affordable” for anyone but the most wealthy amongst us.

The State of Texas does not require sales price disclosure on either residential or commercial properties. We are one of only a few states that lacks this requirement. This sets up the flawed appraisal protest system, where the big boys can out-lawyer and out-spend not only the average homeowner, but the Appraisal Districts as well. Believe it or not, any cases that the Appraisal Districts lose in court require them to pay the commercial property owners’ legal fees. But if the case is decided in favor of us lowly taxpayers, we still have to pay the people’s side of the legal fees. The scales of justice are as titled as they can be. Attempts at reform during the current Legislative session went mostly nowhere, just as they have in every previous session going back for eons.

If you have a strong enough stomach, try to make yourself comfortable and watch this informative video on the inequity issues in our tax appraisal system. Thanks to the good folks at Real Values for Texas for their tireless efforts to push for reforms.

Austin To Consider Challenging Commercial Property Appraisals

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By Bill Oakey – May 19, 2015

The City of Austin will decide within less than two weeks whether to formally challenge the tax appraisals of non-residential commercial properties. This would be a landmark event that comes as very welcome news. For far too long, commercial property owners have enjoyed the benefit of special loopholes under Texas law that allow them to gain property tax appraisals that often equate to only 60% of their true market value.

Texas is one of a tiny handful of states that do not require sales disclosure of properties after completed real estate transactions. This creates a tremendous burden on tax appraisal districts. It is much harder for them to determine actual market value of many commercial properties than it is for residential units. Residential units can be appraised in bulk, because of common characteristics in residential neighborhoods. But commercial properties vary widely in all sorts of respects, causing appraisals districts to face lots of challenges in trying to accurately estimate the market value of every building within their jurisdictions.

in Travis County, 90% of commercial property owners challenge their appraisals, and they often take their cases to court. The deep pockets of the big corporations dwarf the budget of the appraisal district, creating a very unlevel playing field. Many of the very same companies that receive tax subsidies to locate in Austin turn around and protest their tax appraisals, shifting the burden to residential taxpayers. The whole picture does not bode well for the beleaguered homeowners who have seen their tax appraisals shoot through the roof in the last few years.

A Great Big Thank You to Mayor Pro-Tem Kathie Tovo and Council Members Ann Kitchen, Ellen Troxclair Don Zimmerman!

These four City Council members have co-sponsored a resolution for Tuesday May 19th  to formally challenge this year’s tax appraisals for large commercial properties. A final decision on whether to file a challenge must be made before June 1st. The City has been studying and preparing for this potential action since last year. Of course there are risks that tax collections might be delayed. Bold actions always come with risks. But a fight for fairness is always a noble fight! One might ask, why doesn’t the Texas Legislature pass better laws to close the loopholes enjoyed by the rich and powerful? (silly question).

And one might say that commercial property owners might just raise their prices to their customers if they were suddenly required to pay their fair share of property taxes. But I have a much different outlook on the situation. Why should good, hard working average citizens be taxed out of their socks, year after year, while the big boys skate by without paying their fair share? I’m not the least bit concerned about how tough the fight is. The fact that we have new people on the City Council who are bold enough to stand up for the taxpayers is something to celebrate. I support the City Council resolution. Let the battle begin!

You Are Invited to a Property Tax Appraisal Forum

Dear Travis County Resident,

Commissioner Brigid Shea invites you to the Property Tax Appraisal Forum on Tuesday, May 19th from 6:00-8:00pm at the First Unitarian Universalist Church (4700 Grover Ave; 78757).

The forum will provide information on the current status of tax appraisals and the efforts underway to ease the burden on homeowners. The speakers will address concerns and provide information that you may need for appeals and exemptions, as well as an update on current legislation.

Speakers Include:

Brigid Shea, Travis County Commissioner

Kathie Tovo, City of Austin Mayor Pro Tem

Bruce Elfant, Travis County Tax Assessor

Marya Crigler, Travis Central Appraisal District Chief Appraiser

Dick Levine, Center for Public Policy Priorities

Leigh Murrin, Real Values for Texas

Sincerely,

Brigid Shea
Travis County Commissioner, Precinct 2
Address: 700 Lavaca, Ste.2.700, Austin, Texas
Phone: 512-854-1489
Email: Brigid.Shea@traviscountytx.gov
Twitter and Facebook: CommishShea