James Quintero - Policy Director, Texas Public Policy Foundation Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
No, we talked about property taxes quite frequently, because as
long as we have a property tax in Texas, you
never really own your home. Even if you paid off
the bank, you still have to pay off the state
every year, or they can put a lien on your property.
James Quinterol joins us, but he's the policy director of
the Texas Public Policy Foundation. I know property taxes because
you and I've talked about this quite a few times.

(00:21):
Is a big deal in your world. I'm looking at
since the governor's plan came out, I'm looking at some
headlines from the mainstream media here in Texas. This is
from the San Antonio Express News. Governor greg Aabbott's push
to end local property school taxes earns. An f Houston
Chronicle says Abbott promises to start public schools of tax revenues.

(00:42):
So you know where the mainstream is coming from. How
hard of a task is it to fund public schools
without doing it with property taxes.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well, good morning, and great question, Jimmy. You know, it's
no surprise that the dinosaur media can't think outside the
box when it comes to party taxes. But the fact
of the matter is it is entirely achievable to eliminate
the school district maintenance and operations tax. Now that was
a mouthful, But what the maintenance and operations tax or

(01:14):
the m and O tax means or pays for, is
just day to day supplies and salaries, right, and that
comes to about thirty five billion dollars a year. So
if the legislature wanted to, it could easily pass a
constitutional amendment dedicating some portion of future surplus to buying

(01:37):
down that m and O rate over time until it
reaches zero. Now that's not some fantastical idea, because we've
already been doing it, except we've been doing it via
statutory change. So since twenty nineteen, we've effectively cut in
half the maximum m and O tax rate from about

(01:59):
a dollar seven team to somewhere in the low sixties today.
So what the governor is proposing to do is to
put this in the constitution and make sure that we
continue to make progress on this until we reach zero,
and then we hold it there in perpetuity.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
All right, Well, that takes here that portion of what
you're paying property taxes, but obviously you pay a lot
more than that. You pay, most of us paying mud
tax and other types of property taxes. Is the governor
also proposing reducing and or eliminating those Yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Know, one of the great frustrations at the legislature today
is the fact that state lawmakers continue to devote billions
upon billions of dollars toward tax relief, and yet nobody
seems to feel it. And that's because other cities, counties,
and special districts have stepped into the breach and they've

(02:50):
taken chunks out of people's tax relief. And they've done
so through rate hikes and bond elections and certificates of
obligation and other means. And so what one of the
other parts of the governor's plan calls for the implementation
of a local spending limit. We need to put some

(03:12):
reasonable spending limits in place to make sure that cities
and counties in particular, are not eroding the value of
tax relief as it comes down from the legislature.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Also, I would think, you know, a big part of
what goes into even if you're lucky enough to not
have a local tax rate hike, if your assessment goes up,
and in recent years, our assessments have all gone through
the roof. If your assessment goes up, you pay a
higher tax. Is there also part of the Governor's plan
that would put a limit on how much more your

(03:44):
your home could be assessed on any given year from
year to gear.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, that's a great question. So right now we have
about Texans enjoy a ten percent homestead cap, which means
your taxable value can't grow by more than ten percent
if you're homesteaded. What the Governor's plan calls for is
extending that that cap to other types of property like commercial, multifamily,

(04:10):
and industrial and really extending this sort of protection to everybody. Now,
in the ideal policy world, something like this wouldn't even
be necessary because you were taxing units would adjust their
rates down to compensate for value growth. Because one thing
that local officials, you know, local officials love to blame

(04:33):
value growth without ever fully recognizing that they have the
ability to bring those rates down. They just choose not to.
And so what this what the Governor's plan, this part
of the Governor's plan would force them to do is
actually make those sorts of adjustments where they're taking hard
votes on rate hikes, and so that's you know, that's

(04:54):
another part of this, This whole concept.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Well, it's gonna be interesting to watch this whole thing
unfold because the governor obviously banking this a key part
of his re election plan. Is always, sir, good to
talk to you. Thank you very much, have a great thanksgiving.
That is James Quintero, Policy director of the Texas Public
Policy Foundation,