Republican Waxahachee says he’ll instruct voters to raise property taxes

Rep. Brian Harrison also believes education savings accounts will become a reality in this session.

WAXAHACHE, Texas. For State Representative Brian Harrison, this is the easiest way to solve a huge problem in Texas – not to raise property taxes without voter approval.

“What I’m trying to do here is to put the voters, for the first time, put the taxpayers back, so that they are really responsible for their property taxes, and that if you, the local government, if you want to raise someone’s property taxes, even more , you can’t do this if you don’t hold an election,” the Republican said on Inside Texas Politics.

The HB 2220 will do just that.

And his other bill, HB 2221, would require a supermajority (60%) to pass any tax increase that comes to a vote.

The Waxahachee Republican says that, based on the feedback he’s received from his constituents and others he’s spoken to, he feels “overwhelming” support for his measures.

And he says it won’t necessarily hurt the city’s revenues.

“I represent a growing region, so I understand that local governments must ensure growth,” the Republican told us. “But the adoption of last year’s effective tax rate does not mean that their income will remain the same due to the arrival of all new people. This increases their tax base.”

As a member of the House Committee on Public Education and a father of four, Harrison also believes education savings accounts will be implemented in this legislative session.

It’s part of Republicans’ push for school choice, and they will allow parents to opt out of going to public schools and use taxpayer money to educate their children in a different way, usually in a private school.

But public school advocates and rural legislators have long opposed the effort, arguing it diverts too much money from public education.

Harrison, however, says that rural Republican voters may want more than anything to have an education savings account.

“The 10 most rural counties in the state of Texas, the 10 most rural counties, when it was put to the vote with Republican primary voters last year, each of those 10 most rural counties in Texas supported the school choice, and they supported it. by a huge margin,” he told us.

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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.

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