By Catherine Cuellar, KERA Reporter
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Dallas, TX –
Host: In two weeks, Dallas County may freeze the property tax rate for senior citizens. County commissioners are divided on how to best protect seniors while making sure county services are still adequately funded, as KERA's Catherine Cuellar explains.
Catherine Cuellar: County taxes are just a fraction of the amount paid annually by homeowners - with school districts and cities taking the lion's share. Right now Dallas County has the lowest tax rate is in the state - about 24 cents per hundred dollars of value - and property owners 65 and older can subtract $69,000 from the taxable value of their home.
Maurine Dickey: 3That doesn't seem like a lot of money to some but of course, to others, it is.
Cuellar: Dallas county commissioner Maurine Dickey
Dickey: I think we should take into consideration this $69,000 exemption was done in 1988, so home values have gone up a bit since 1988.
Cuellar: So, Dickey wants to cap the amount of taxes seniors pay when they turn 65.
Dickey: We don't want to run the seniors off :47 We want to give them something that will make them want to be in Dallas and not leave Dallas as soon as they retire.
Cuellar: But commissioners John Wiley Price and Ken Mayfield believe the current tax rates for Dallas County seniors are incentive enough.
John Wiley Price: If they run to Collin or Denton they pay higher taxes.
Ken Mayfield: and they don't get as generous an exemption.
Cuellar: In 2003, a state constitutional amendment adopted by voters allowed counties to freeze taxable property values for senior citizens, as commissioner Dickey proposed. But commissioner Mike Cantrell wants to expand on her idea.
Mike Cantrell: Everyone that has received the exemption up to this point would remain that way. Next year, anyone turning 65 after next year, on a go forward basis, the tax freeze would be in place.
Cuellar: Cantrell's proposal is in the spirit of the state constitution, guaranteeing that seniors won't be taxed out of their homes. Mayfield said that if Dickey would support Cantrell's proposal, he would too. With those three Republican commissioners in agreement, they could pass the freeze and repeal the exemption for seniors. But some seniors turning 65 next year would have their tax rate frozen at a higher dollar amount than they would if the current exemption were preserved.
The commissioners requested data from county staff about how many seniors would be affected, and how many years in the future seniors might benefit. Dickey wants the court to take action in two weeks.
Catherine Cuellar, KERA News