Hunt County school districts post no-new-revenue tax rates

Travis Hairgrove, The Herald Banner, Greenville, Texas
·3 min read

Sep. 8—In August, school districts throughout Hunt County adopted property tax rates lower than they were the previous year. In fact, in many of the districts' cases, their school boards have been steadily adopting lower tax rates each year for the last three or more years.

However, despite the lower property tax rates, many homeowners in Hunt County will likely see an increase in the dollar amount they pay in taxes toward their school districts, as none of the adopted rates are lower than their respective district's "no-new-revenue" rate (formerly referred to as the "effective rate.")

The no-new-revenue rate is where it would need to be set to generate the same amount of revenue as the previous year.

With many people in Hunt County and across the country still straining to budget for necessities like food and fuel due to skyrocketing inflation, many are concerned about higher taxes, especially since the hot real estate market in Hunt County drove the average appraised value of a home by about 25% between 2021 and 2022.

Although healthy growth is still expected in the local real estate market, sale values and appraised values may not increase quite as sharply this year, some say.

"While we won't finish analyzing the data until January 2023, all indicators are that the increase in home values will at least slow down, compared to this previous year," said Hunt County Chief Tax Appraiser Brent South.

In addition to an anticipated slowing down on property value increases, South also pointed out that the Texas Legislature is expected to have an extra $27 billion in its coffers ahead of its 2023 session (largely due to receiving more revenue through sales taxes since prices are higher on virtually all goods), and that those funds could be used toward property tax relief.

"With the extra billions, I suspect there will be much more talk of tax relief in our Legislature this coming session," South said.

The adopted tax rates and posted no-new-revenue rates for some of the public school districts in Hunt County are as follows:

—Greenville ISD adopted a property tax rate of $1.103 per $100 valuation, which is a 1.74-cent decrease compared to the previous rate, but is still about 14.69 cents above the district's no-new-revenue rate of 95.62 cents per $100 valuation.

—Quinlan ISD adopted a property tax rate of $1.043 per $100 valuation, which is a 1.74-cent decrease compared to the previous rate, but is still about 21.3 cents above the district's no-new-revenue rate of 82.99 cents per $100 valuation.

—Caddo Mills ISD adopted a property tax rate of $1.443 per $100 valuation, which is a 1.74-cent decrease compared to the previous rate, but is still about 27.846 cents above the district's no-new-revenue rate of 1.1644 cents per $100 valuation.

—Celeste ISD adopted a property tax rate of $1.171 per $100 valuation, which is a 5.016-cent decrease compared to the previous rate, but is still about 24.12 cents above the district's no-new-revenue rate of 92.95 cents per $100 valuation.

—Boles ISD adopted a property tax rate of $1.1929 per $100 valuation, which is a 1.74-cent decrease compared to the previous rate, but is still about 27.22 cents above the district's no-new-revenue rate of 92.07 cents per $100 valuation.

—Bland ISD adopted a property tax rate of $1.0257 per $100 valuation, which is an 8.63-cent decrease compared to the previous rate, but is still about 1.31 cents above the district's no-new-revenue rate of 1.0126 cents per $100 valuation.

—Wolfe City ISD adopted a property tax rate of $1.1273 per $100 valuation, which is a 17.416-cent decrease compared to the previous rate, but is still about 18.98 cents above the district's no-new-revenue rate of 93.75 cents per $100 valuation.