Collin County commissioners voted to raise property taxes for the first time in 33 years despite pushback from the county judge.
Commissioners voted 4-1 to approve the county’s budget and tax rate for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 at Monday’s commissioner’s court meeting. The new tax rate is about $0.151 per $100 of a home’s value, an increase of about 2.4% from the current rate of about $0.149 per $100 of a home’s value.
Collin County Judge Chris Hill voted against the budget and tax rate, citing the impact on taxpayers. Hill has voted against the county’s budget and tax rate the past several years.
The county kept the same property tax rate for the past few years, but property tax bills still increased due to an increase in home values. The increase in property tax revenue will add about $16.3 million to the county’s budget according to county budget documents.
The median home value in Collin County this year was $517,911 according to county budget documents. The median homeowner in the county with a homestead exemption can expect to pay $744.98 in property taxes under the new rate.
Last year, the median home value in Collin County was $480,773 according to the 2026 fiscal year adopted budget. The average homeowner with a homestead exemption paid $682.10 in property taxes to the county under the previous budget’s tax rate.
Hill proposed asking the county’s departments to cut 2.67% and of their budgets and forgoing raises for county employees to prevent raising taxes but his motion failed to move forward. He made the same motions two other times at previous commissioners’ court meetings.
Taxpayers who don’t receive regular raises are footing the bill for the county employees’ salary increases, Hill said.
“You've got a transfer of wealth basically from the non-county employees to the county employees because everyone in the county has to pay our taxes but the county employees are getting raises faster than everyone else,” he said.
The raises for county employees are necessary for recruitment and retention to keep up with market rates for similar positions, Commissioner Susan Fletcher said. And the county’s departments, Fletcher said, already maintain lean budgets.
“We have asked our departments every year, don’t go ask for more than you need,” she said. “Find where you can cut.”
The Texas Public Policy Foundation found in a new study of local government spending that Collin County’s spending was behind population and inflation growth rates from 2015-2025. Collin County is one of the fastest growing counties in the nation according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The county’s growing population and strict budget leaves no room for additional cuts, Commissioner Darrell Hale said when Hill proposed the 2.67% cut at the August 31 commissioners’ court meeting.
"I can't support that, given how tight we already run,” Hale said. “And we were digging for every single dollar that we possibly could, even this budget cycle.”
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