House bills on property tax relief, border security to drop
AUSTIN, Texas — Speaker of the House Dade Phelan offered his road map for the upcoming legislative session on Thursday, and it’s no surprise that it has different routes than the priorities of the Texas Senate.
Phelan, who addressed the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Policy Summit, promised two bills in the next week: The House version of property tax relief and a proposal from the chamber to reshape the state’s approach to security along the Texas-Mexico border.
The House’s property tax bill, House Bill 2, dropped a couple of hours after Phelan’s speech. The bill is being carried by Rep. Morgan Meyer, R-Dallas, who chairs the House Ways & Means Committee. It also has a companion resolution, HJR 1, which would take the proposal to voters for approval.
“We’re going to focus on property tax relief in a new way, the likes of which we haven’t done in many, many decades, in my personal opinion,” Phelan said. “As of right now, your homestead is limited to a 10% increase in taxable value year in, year out. We’re going to reduce that to 5%.”
That limit on property value growth is not just limited to homesteads. Instead, it will apply to every single piece of property in the state, including business and even assets like timber.
“We can talk about the homestead exemptions all day long, and that’s great, but what does that do for the small business? What’s that do for that first-generation small business?” Phelan said. “I have constituents who don’t even own a home. They pour (all their money) back into their business.”
How does that translate into savings? Capping values would cut $461 off a home valued at $350,000, Phelan told the crowd. The following year, it would be $590. That value will continue to grow into perpetuity as long as the homeowner owns the home, he added.
The Senate proposal, carried by Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, would increase the homestead exemption from $40,000 to $70,000, at a cost of $3.5 billion. Both the House and Senate carry $4.6 billion in their budgets to secure the Texas-Mexico border, but Phelan implied the House will drop a bill next week that will propose a long-term, more-viable solution.
The full Texas delegation supports the federal government picking up the cost Texas has incurred protecting the border. That totals over $8 billion, Phelan said.
“Sometime next week, we are going to file a bill that is going to, I hope, make national headlines and change the conversation of border security, and, hopefully, take the battle all the way to the Supreme Court and allow Texas to protect its own border,” Phelan said.
Texas can do that with far less than $4.6 billion, Phelan said. “I think we can bring our troops home. We can bring home our game wardens. We bring home our National Guard and take the fight to the border ourselves,” he said. If Republicans ever take back the Senate, “they will reimburse us for the dollars spent on the border.”
Phelan also mentioned other priorities the House has set: outcomes-based funding for community colleges; limitations on social media for children; a package of bills to contain the costs of health care; and a criminal justice agenda that will include sending juvenile offenders to community supervision instead of housing them in jails.