Property tax bills arrive this month, and Harris County residents are likely in for a doozy when they open the envelope. The county raised property tax rates this year in excess of state limits, due to a loophole in the law that allows jurisdictions an exception if they've experienced a disaster. Harris County met that threshold due to last May's derecho storm and Hurricane Beryl in July.
But almost as bad as the increase is the way the county has handled it. County Judge Lina Hidalgo claimed it was an 8% rate hike, but a closer look at the numbers reveals it was actually about 10%. And, as former Houston mayoral candidate Bill King points out in a new column, it's even worse than that. "At the time they passed that rate increase, they knew that house values were going to go up by around 4 or 5 percent," says King. "So when you multiply that, you get more like a 15 percent tax increase on the average house for the year."
That 15% hike comes as the average wage in Houston has risen by less than 4% per year over the last five years, according to King. "You take these high property taxes, high interest rates, high home insurance rates, and it's just not affordable for young people to own a home anymore.," he tells KTRH.
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) is vowing to try to close that loophole that allows entities to exceed state property tax limits, but in the meantime King says the public must get more involved. "People need to start showing up at Commissioners' Court and complaining about it, like they did about crime and criminals being let out on bond," he says. "And they need to tell their neighbors that these elections in 2026 are going to matter, because you're going to have three members of Commissioners' Court up for reelection, primarily Lina Hidalgo, who really pushed this agenda to raise your property taxes."