Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Tuesday unveiled a plan to drive down property taxes by further hiking the amount of a home’s value that can’t be taxed to pay for public schools and lowering the age at which Texans qualify for additional relief on their school tax bills.
Under Patrick’s proposal, dubbed “Operation Double Nickel,” the state’s homestead exemption for school property taxes would increase by another $40,000, after Texas voters in November green-lit the latest increase by the same amount, from $100,000 to $140,000. The minimum exemption under Patrick’s latest plan would allow homeowners to shave $180,000 off the value that can be taxed by their local school district.
Voters also recently signed off on a proposal to raise a separate homestead exemption for homeowners over the age of 65 and those with disabilities, allowing them to take another $60,000 off their home’s taxable value. Patrick’s plan would make homeowners qualify for that benefit at age 55, at which point they would see relief for $240,000 of their home’s value.
This exemption also caps the amount of school property taxes paid by most homeowners at the amount they paid upon turning 65. Patrick noted that homeowners would also start receiving this benefit a decade earlier under his proposal.
“We are on a path now to eliminate school property taxes for every homeowner in Texas in the next few years, no matter their age,” Patrick said Tuesday. “In the next few sessions, we're going to be able to eliminate school property taxes with homestead exemptions."
At a Capitol news conference unveiling his proposal, Patrick also reupped his opposition to the feasibility of eliminating property taxes altogether, displaying placards that said such an idea — a popular rallying cry among conservatives in the state — would inevitably lead to massive increases in sales taxes.
That opposition also pits Patrick, the state’s second-in-command, against Gov. Greg Abbott, who unveiled his own property tax relief proposal last month centered around a vow to abolish school property taxes. The governor has been taking his plan on the road as he gears up to seek a fourth term in 2026, when Patrick will also be up for reelection.
An Abbott spokesperson said in a statement that the governor looked forward to working with Patrick and lawmakers, and doubled down on his own proposals to end school property taxes for homeowners, enact tight restrictions on how much property values can grow and make it harder for local governments to raise property taxes. Patrick has opposed past efforts to lower appraisal caps, the amount by which a home’s taxable value can increase each year, a stance he reiterated Tuesday.
“Gov. Abbott will fight for taxpayers and his comprehensive plan throughout 2026, and he looks forward to working with lawmakers to deliver lasting property tax cuts,” Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary, said in the statement.
Patrick, a Republican who presides over the Texas Senate, refused to comment on the governor’s pitch, saying that the detailing of his own plan to reporters was the first time anyone was seeing it and that he looked forward to working with Abbott and House Speaker Dustin Burrows to reach an agreement on how to lower property taxes.
The third tenet of Patrick’s initiative — released more than a year before the start of the next regular legislative session — seeks to curtail local taxes imposed by counties, cities and other locales. However, he did not elaborate on how the plan would do that, specifying only that local governments must be able to grow but have an onus to be responsible with public funds.
A clash between Abbott and Patrick over property taxes would not be new.
Two years ago, an impasse between state leaders over how to slash property taxes ground the Legislature to a halt and took half the year to resolve. The governor called two subsequent special overtime legislative sessions before lawmakers reached an agreement, including a boost in the state’s homestead exemption, billions in state dollars to drive down school property tax rates and a special appraisal cap for some business owners.
This year, state lawmakers came to Austin with a slightly smaller budget surplus — and enacted another boost in the homestead exemption and expanded breaks for businesses on the taxes they pay on their inventory. By the end of the session, lawmakers had committed to spending $51 billion to maintain past property tax cuts and enact new ones over the next two years — a dollar figure that budget watchers and even some Republicans worry may be unsustainable.
Still, by the time the session ended, some lawmakers said the state had not done enough to help homeowners.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
