Boerne ISD continues reducing tax burden on residents

Boerne ISD continues reducing tax burden on residents

At its September 18 meeting, the Boerne ISD Board of Trustees approved a 16% reduction in its tax rate for 2023, lowering it from $1.178 to $0.993. This will reduce the school taxes paid by the average BISD homeowner by $890 from their 2022 total.

This reduction marks the fifth consecutive year that BISD has lowered its tax rate, from $1.354 in 2018 to the newly adopted $0.993.

In August 2022, trustees approved five legislative priorities for the 88th session of the Texas Legislature, one of which was sustainable property tax relief. This followed up on previous efforts made by the board since 2017 to promote increasing the state of Texas’ share of funding K-12 public education, which in turn enables local districts to reduce their tax rate.

T Trustees supported this effort because close to 10% of school property taxes paid by BISD residents in 2022 was taken by the state in what is called recapture, or Robin Hood. This resulted in a “Robin Hood tax” totaling $450 for the average BISD homeowner.

Recapture money, which totaled $5 billion statewide in 2023, goes into Texas’ General Fund and is not specifically designated for education.

Following the passage of House Bill 3 in 2019, the state increased its share of public-school funding and BISD went several years without paying recapture. However, rapid appraisal growth resulted in a return of recapture in 2022 that totaled close to $8 million of local property taxes.

To support its legislative priorities, in February 2023 20 Boerne volunteers, including present and former trustees and other community leaders, visited the state capitol in Austin and met with over 70 legislative members and staff who sit on the Appropriations and Education committees. Members of the team also met with Gov. Greg Abbott and key staff members of Lt Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan.

Though it required two special sessions, the legislature passed Senate Bill 2 that increased state aid to buy down local school district tax rates, as well as increasing the homestead exemption from $40,000 to $100,000.

The increase in the homestead exemption requires voter approval of Proposition 4, on the ballot in November 2023. While trustees cannot officially endorse a specific ballot amendment or proposition, voter approval of Proposition 4 will fulfill one of BISD trustees’ main priorities adopted in August 2022. It would also eliminate any recapture required of BISD for 2023-24.

As chairman of the board’s Legislative Advocacy Committee, I want to thank local legislators for working with trustees to enact four of our five legislative priorities this session.

Sen. Donna Campbell and Reps. Ellen Troxclair and Mark Dorazio were very supportive of our priorities. We appreciate that.

We look forward to October’s Special Legislative Session which will focus on education. We hope they appropriate the $4 billion already in the state budget that is reserved for public education that is not yet officially allocated.

This would go a long way towards implementing our final priority -- improving teacher pay to a level that our hard-working educators deserve.

Our board President Carlin Friar said, “We are pleased to be able to offer continued tax reduction to our homeowners. Despite significant appraisal increases over the past few years, the owner of the average priced home in BISD will be paying $450 less in school taxes than they were five years ago.”

We will continue to work with our legislators and state leaders to further increase the state’s share of public education funding, which in turn will allow us to continue reducing the tax rate in future years.

“Despite significant appraisal increases over the past few years, the owner of the average priced home in BISD will be paying $450 less in school taxes than they were five years ago.”

- Carlin Friar, BISD Board President

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