How Texas appraisal districts actually work — and what every property owner should know before protest season. Sourced from CAD records, statute, and case law. Published when we have something worth saying.
Katy ISD trustees adopted a $1.1171 per-$100 tax rate on September 21, 2026. The rate is set by the board and cannot be contested by an individual homeowner. The appraised value — the other half of the bill — can be. Here is how those two numbers interact and what action remains available to Katy homeowners.
Read the analysis →Harris County commissioners approved a combined tax rate of $0.6715 per $100 on September 17, 2026 — up from $0.6241. Budget officials told ABC13 Houston the average $400,000 homestead will pay $188 more annually. Once a rate is adopted, the only contestable number on a Texas property-tax bill is the appraised value.
Read the analysis →Dallas County adopted a 2026 tax rate of 24.865 cents per $100 — 2.4 cents above its voter-approval ceiling. The extra levy costs a $300,000 homestead about $72 a year. Rates, however, are set by government and are not yours to contest. Your appraised value is. Here is how to separate the two.
Read the analysis →Harris County's Commissioners Court voted 5-0 to eliminate county-level property taxes for qualifying seniors, disabled homeowners, and disabled veterans with homes at or below $286,250. The savings start with next year's bills and repeat annually — but the exemption only addresses one slice of a tax bill built on an appraised value you can still contest.
Read the analysis →One 2026 Texas property-tax guide lists a $100,000 base school homestead exemption plus $60,000 for seniors and disabled homeowners. A second guide shows $140,000 base plus $10,000 extra. The gap — as large as $60,000 in exempt value — directly affects 2026 ISD tax bills and signals that many online calculators and county websites may be out of sync with current law.
Read the analysis →Texas Comptroller Don Huffines distributed $1.4 billion in August 2026 local sales-tax allocations — 13.6% above year-ago levels — and urged local governments to direct that surplus toward property-tax relief. The Comptroller's signal matters, but it operates on the rate side of your tax bill. Here is what homeowners can act on now.
Read the analysis →The Texas Education Agency's August 5 guidance caps 2026 school M&O tax rates at each district's Maximum Compressed Rate plus, at minimum, five "golden pennies" — $0.05 per $100 of taxable value — before a voter-approval election is required. The rate ceiling is set. Your appraised value is not, and that distinction defines what you can actually contest.
Read the analysis →On one August day, Austin adopted its highest city tax rate in a decade (up 31% since 2017) while Dallas, Fort Worth, and San Antonio confronted nine-figure gaps — Fort Worth's hole grew partly because more homeowners protested their values. Why flat appraisal rolls push rates to the 3.5% ceiling, what the Legislature does next, and why the value side of the equation — the only side you can contest — matters more now, not less.
Read the analysis →Fort Worth's proposed FY2027 budget raises the city tax rate from 67 to 70.2 cents, yet projects the typical homeowner paying about $16.69 less — because appraised values fell far enough to open a $76.8M shortfall. The truth-in-taxation math behind a rising rate and a lower bill, why the §26.04 no-new-revenue mechanic makes both true at once, and what a jurisdiction budgeting around falling values means for your protest — including the §25.25 correction routes that survive a missed May 15 deadline.
Read the analysis →Two public bills — Prop 4 in 2023 and Prop 13 in 2025 — pushed the school district homestead exemption from $40,000 to $140,000, with an extra $60,000 stacked on top for over-65 and disabled homeowners. The combined effect is showing up on 2026 tax bills for the first time. A statute-anchored walk through what the bills did, what the §11.26 freeze actually does (and doesn't), and what every senior should verify on the §25.19 notice before May 15.
Read the analysis →Gov. Abbott's reelection-anchor proposal would tighten spending caps, require supermajority votes for tax increases, and — most consequentially — cap appraisal growth at 3% on a five-year cycle for all property classes. That last piece replicates the structure of California's 1978 Proposition 13. Forty-seven years of California operating data exist; most coverage skips them. Plus the state-funding math problem buried in Point #5. An operational read of all five points.
Read the analysis →A Burleson property owner's land value jumped 329% in a single year. Her building didn't change. Her zoning didn't change. The Johnson County Appraisal District quietly repriced a sub-cohort of A1 residential parcels by 200–500% in 2024 — without reclassification, without §25.19 notice, without §23.55 procedure. Anatomy of how it happened, the pattern Texas homeowners should learn to spot, and where the additional revenue actually goes once it's collected.
Read the case study →More posts in the queue. We publish when we have CAD-record-level analysis worth your time — not on a content calendar.