Independent school district

And that doesn't count special purpose districts, SMUDs, and things like that.

And we'll, you know, I'll just point out a few interesting statistics that came out of the meeting because we already heard a big comprehensive presentation at a previous meeting in the Senate about ISD property taxes in particular.

And the reason why those are important is because those tend to be the biggest component of the average homeowner's property tax bill in Texas.

So Mike Morath, who's the head of the Texas Education Agency, gave a presentation on property values, ISD property taxes, all that stuff.

And we learned from his presentation that Since 2013, property values, at least as they're appraised for school finance, have risen by an average 120%, right? That's since 2013.

But if the state had not expanded the homestead exemption since that time, property value growth would have been 163%.

And then like, like I said here in the city of Frisco, we have such a good relationship with the SROs.

If you put kids through the ISD, even at the...

If your just kids are in sports, they're at the games.

You know? So if you're playing at a particular school and your kid's in a particular sport, you know, I'm like, "Oh, there's Officer James again tonight keeping us safe and watching the activity buses and the parents get back to the cars safely at night in the wintertime." Like, you're everywhere, right? So I just have a healthy appreciation for, for what I see, knowing what I know, having been on the federal side and worked so closely, and having been on the city side and, and ascending to the federal side.

He was going through some of the school district membership in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

In 2006, uh, Coppell, uh, ISD, it's a school district.

Just don't worry about it.

It's in Dallas.

It's born and raised in Fort Worth.

I'm a, you know, fourth generation PTA leader and in Fort Worth ISD and Northwest ISD.

My great grandmother was the PTA president at Meadowbrook Elementary.

I live in

Wanted to raise my kids here.

And you have thought about running for a long time.

I've done a lot of things with the school board and up in Northwest ISD and just paid attention to school finance up there.

It's a fast-growing area, just like Tarrant County.

So that's an 83% increase overall.

However, the average independent school district tax bill has shrunk, and the share of Texans who pay no school district property tax at all has actually grown a lot.

And a lot of this is due to exemptions because we see the growth of this population of people who pay no ISD tax, especially concentrated among seniors, people over 65, and also disabled homeowners.

And Betancourt repeatedly said, this is a success.

Anyway, slice it.

Because heretofore, we've been relying on, you know, not only anecdotal evidence, but piecemeal evidence from certain taxing entities, jurisdictions, things like that.

So again, one result that came up a lot was that if you were over 65 or disabled, then the average homeowner who fits that bill has actually seen a pretty good deal of reduction in the school property tax.

And one reason why this component of the property tax burden is particularly relevant is that it tends to be, on average, the largest component of any Texas homeowner's tax bill, the ISD tax.

Local governments around the state collected nearly $90 billion in property tax revenue last year, an 83% increase from the 2014 total of $49 billion, according to a, quote, first-of-its-kind statewide data collection effort, end quote, prepared by Betancourt's office and presented to the local government committee of the Texas Senate on Tuesday.

While levies have grown overall, the average independent school district tax bill has shrunk, and the share of Texans who pay no ISD property taxes has grown.

Betancourt said, quote, this, by any measurement, is a success.

Also, the Houston City Council has accepted a proposed $50 million buyout from the Woodlands that will end sales tax revenue sharing for mutually beneficial projects and permanently end the threat of annexation.