Continuing a trend, officials in conservative Collin County recommended lowering their property tax rate to keep taxpayers’ bills steady despite rising property values. At the proposed rate, the average homeowner’s county property tax bill will stay unchanged at $623.
“I am thrilled we are able to give the citizens of Collin County the effective tax rate again for the fourth year in a row,” Precinct 3 Commissioner Darrell Hale told Texas Scorecard. The effective tax rate—also called the “no-new-revenue” rate—collects the same amount of property tax revenue overall from the same properties taxed last year, both residential and commercial.
During their annual budget workshop this week, commissioners approved a budget proposal for FY 2020 based on the effective tax rate of $0.174951 per $100 of assessed taxable value.
“We will be providing a large list of new services in the next year with full-time magistrates, online dispute resolution (with assistance from the Pew Foundation grant), two new courts, and additional chief prosecutors,” Hale said. “These are all expenditures needed to accommodate our growing county and to be able to provide swift justice.”
This marks the eighth year over the past decade that Collin County has adopted the taxpayer-friendly effective rate. Collin currently has the second lowest property tax rate of any Texas county.
Texas’ Truth in Taxation laws require taxing entities to calculate and publish their effective rate to ensure the public is informed of any tax increases. Year-over-year rate comparisons are meaningless because they don’t account for changing property values. The effective rate adjusts as property values change to keep taxpayers’ bills roughly the same, in the aggregate, though individual taxpayers’ results vary based on valuations and exemptions.
Like all local taxing entities, the county will collect additional property tax revenue from new properties added to the tax rolls this year, which are not included in the effective tax rate calculation. That allows the county’s expanding tax base to fund growth.
The county’s rate reduction does not apply to city, school district, or college taxes. Each local taxing entity sets its own property tax rate.
Because commissioners chose the effective tax rate, the county is not required to hold public hearings on the tax rate, but they opted to conduct hearings on September 3 and 9.
The proposed budget will be available on September 9. A public hearing on the budget is set for September 16, after which commissioners will vote on a final county budget and tax rate.
Collin County Commissioners Court meeting schedules, agendas, and videos can be found at www.collincountytx.gov/government/Pages/agenda.aspx.
Collin County Budget & Tax Rate Hearings
September 3: 1st Tax Rate Public Hearing
September 9: 2nd Tax Rate Public Hearing; Budget released
September 16: Budget Public Hearing; County adopts final Budget and Tax Rate
