Reports keep filtering in from cities and counties across the state: local officials are jacking up property taxes. When the Legislature “bought down” school property taxes, the inevitable result was other taxing entities filing the gap created and raising their rates. Now comes word from Beaumont that Jefferson County is joining the city fathers in El Paso, Dallas, San Antonio, and elsewhere in raising taxes.
In Jefferson County, the tax hike is meant to fund a 9-percent increase in the salaries of elected officials, and a 7-percent raise for the bureaucrats (funny how that works, eh?).
They’d also but a new million-dollar phone system. So at least when you call to beg for an extension on your taxes, you can rest assured you are listening to the best elevator music money can buy.
