Elected officials line up to oppose taxpayer protections

Today, City representatives from Plano, Cedar Park, Irving, Sugar Land, Ft Worth, City of Mansfield, Tarrant County and others lined up to oppose taxpayer protections.

All came before the legislature opposing taxpyaer protections in the form of lowering to 5% (from the current 10%) appraisal caps on homesteads.

To hear their squealing, you would think they were discussing bills which would limit their ability to raise revenue.

No bills before the Ways and Means Committee are recommending that. The bills are simply requiring that local officials “own up” to the practice of raising taxes.

A Plano representative even admitted that local elected officials campaign for re-election claiming they “haven’t raised taxes” when they didn’t need to raise the rate to get more revenue from taxpayers…the appraisal increases did that.

City officials touted their cities’ attributes…attributes funded on the backs of taxpyaers.

Someone from the City of Mansfield claimed they have “lowered our taxes four times” but was asked to clarify – they had actually lowered their tax rate but have been able to increase revenue (thanks to appraisal increases.)

Bottom line: local elected officials don’t want to honestly address taxpayers and say, “we need to raise your taxes” but hide behind the skirts of the appraisal districts to do that for them.

It’s a dishonest practice which needs to end. Clearly, local officials are not eager to "come clean" with their constituents. – Peggy Venable