Democrat County Commissioners in Harris County gave preliminary approval to a property tax hike on Tuesday, voting to move forward with a property tax rate that the County’s lone Republican Commissioner has described as “its highest level that we’ve ever seen in Harris County.
Republican County Commissioner Tom Ramsey, joined by outgoing Democrat County Judge Lina Hidalgo, voted against moving forward with the property tax hike, while Democrat County Commissioners Rodney Ellis, Adrian Garcia, and Lesley Briones voted for it. Ramsey also proposed maintaining the County’s property tax rate at its current level, but his motion died for lack of a second.
Garcia and Briones are both up for re-election in November. Garcia faces Republican opponent Richard Vega, a pastor, while Briones will square off against Republican Steve Radack, a former County Commissioner. Democrat Letitia Plummer, a former Houston City Councilwoman with a documented history of supporting tax increases, is seeking to replace Hidalgo as County Judge with the backing of Ellis, Garcia, and Briones. Plummer’s Republican opponent, Orlando Sanchez, is a longtime Houston-area political figure who previously served on Houston City Council and as Harris County Treasurer.
At a press conference last week, Republican leaders condemned the proposed tax hike.
“At a time when people are struggling in Harris County to pay the bills and live within their means, the Democrats on Commissioners Court are seriously considering a budget and a property tax increase, the highest in 20 years. Since taking office and control of Commissioners Court when they were sworn in back in 2019, they’ve increased their spending by over a billion dollars,” said Cindy Siegel, the Chairman of the Harris County Republican Party.
Tom Ramsey, the lone Republican on Harris County Commissioners Court, took aim at the County’s spending on functions beyond the County’s “core responsibilities.”
“$550 million of the $3.2 billion budget is non-statutory. What does that mean? We have a choice. You can look at $550 million and immediately start taking action in terms of cutting and eliminating and addressing problems,” he said. Ramsey also proposed cutting the salaries of every county employee making over $400,000 per year by ten percent.
State Senator Paul Bettencourt, who serves as Chairman of the Texas Senate Local Government Committee, also spoke out against the proposed tax hike. He remarked, “The public can’t take double-digit tax increases year after year. That’s why the state is desperately buying down the tax rate. We’re pouring $51 billion into trying to cut taxes for taxpayers in the state of Texas, and we’ve got an outfit down here that thinks nothing of sucking up billions of dollars of taxpayer money directly out of taxpayers’ pocketbooks down here. It’s not sustainable.”
After the vote, Bettencourt posted a chart to his social media accounts showing that, with the proposed tax increase, the average homeowner in Harris County will have a county property tax bill that is just $50 less than the average school tax bill in Houston ISD.
“I do not know of any other county government that bills taxpayers as much as their largest school district. That’s off the charts!” he wrote.
Despite demanding more money from taxpayers, Democrat County Commissioners have continued to vote for controversial, non-core projects such as murals, public art installations, and a $468,610 taxpayer subsidy for the Gay Softball World Series.
Earlier this year, Commissioners Court voted to hire Erica Lee Carter, the daughter of the late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, as the new Harris County Administrator at a salary reported to be $411,000 per year.
