“We’re Kind of Maxed Out at What We Can Do for Property Tax Reform”
There is a lot of misinformation floating around the state of Texas when it comes to the ability of the state to reduce or eliminate property taxes.
This is the first article in a series where we’ll examine some of the misinformation and set the record straight.
“Texas runs a pretty lean budget. We’ve spent money, I can agree, that we shouldn’t have on different things, but generally speaking, our budget is tied up in roads, schools and Medicaid. That’s it. So tell me which one of those you want to do less of. We’re kind of maxed out at what we can do for property tax reform, from a budget perspective.”
– Texas State Sen. Charles Perry1
One of the most popular pieces of misinformation floating around the Texas Capitol is that Texas can no longer afford to reduce, much less eliminate, property taxes–it just costs too much money! Sen. Perry follows this line of thinking when he makes the case that Texas has a pretty lean budget from which there is no fat to trim for tax relief. He mentions public schools as an example of this. So let us look at how lean public education spending is.
For the 2023-24 school year (the most recent year for which we have data), total expenditures for all Texas schools was $99.99 billion, up from $56.33 billion from 2013-14. That is up $43.6 billion, an average annual increase of 7.75%. On a per student basis, spending increased from $10,971 to $18,125, up 6.52% per year on average. These are both significantly higher than the increases in inflation (2.9%), gross state product (5%), or wages (3.4%) over the same period.
As far as the state budget goes, total appropriations per session are up $124.8 billion over that same period, a 60% increase, averaging 4.78% annually. This spending splurge was fueled by record budget surpluses over much of this period, including $32 billion in 2023 and $24 billion in 2025. The table above shows what happened to $51 billion of the budget surpluses during this time. These are just some of the examples.
It seems like the Texas budget and school spending are more fat than lean. Billions of dollars that went to new spending and crony corporatism could have been used instead to reduce property taxes.
All that was needed to make this happen was fiscal restraint on behalf of Texas politicians.
- https://communityimpact.com/austin/south-central-austin/texas-legislature/2025/11/26/kind-of-maxed-out-texas-lawmakers-question-whether-state-can-afford-to-fund-larger-property-tax-breaks/
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