WE ARE OVERTAXED

For the last ten years, at least, Dallas City property taxes have been rising about twice as fast as our incomes. Rents are rising and people are being taxed out of their homes.

Property tax valuations have been rising at 7% per year for at least 10 years while incomes rose at 3%. Instead of rolling back the tax rate, the City of Dallas has just collected the money and found new ways to spend it. The result is that the Dallas tax rate is 77.6 cents per hundred dollars of valuation while Houston and San Antonio are at around 56 cents. The Houston city charter limits spending growth to the rate of population increase plus the rate of inflation to keep the city budget from outstripping the taxpayer’s budgets. We need that provision in the Dallas city charter. We also need to freeze property tax revenue at 2020 levels for the next several years until our tax rates are in line with other major Texas cities. That would require a 2% reduction in this year’s proposed budget and a rollback to 74.6 cents. We need to put the City of Dallas on a diet. The required reduction in force can be accomplished by attrition.