What Are Interim Charges?
Every two years, after the Texas Legislature’s regular session, the Lieutenant Governor and the Speaker of the House issue “interim charges,” essentially homework assignments for each chamber’s committees. They tell the committees what topics to study between sessions, what recent laws need checking, and what problems deserve recommendations for the next session.
The charges released last month are no different. They direct committees to dig into everything from energy reliability and border security to fraud prevention and education. In practice, it begins to show where leadership’s priorities really lie for the upcoming session.
An Overview
Both chambers gave their committees a long list of topics. The Senate charges1 focused heavily on practical, day-to-day issues. The Business and Commerce Committee was told to review the electric grid, new transmission lines and their impact on private property, and the rapid growth of data centers. Criminal Justice is tasked with looking at prison contraband, reserve officers, and juvenile violence. Education to examine declining enrollment, and the rollout of school choice. Homeland and Border Security to tackle drones, land ports of entry, and fuel-related crimes.
The House charges2 followed a similar pattern. Agriculture and Livestock is tasked with studying invasive species and farm resiliency. Energy Resources to examine produced water, hydrogen, carbon capture, and orphaned wells. Elections focused on voter registration, citizenship verification, and election technology. Appropriations is tasked with keeping an eye on major spending from the last session, including water projects and rural grants.
Overall, both sets of charges emphasize monitoring recent laws, reviewing agency performance, and addressing state growth.
Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
A handful of charges do show some interest (albeit quite limited interest) in fiscal discipline. The Senate Finance Committee received a direct assignment to study “Preventing Fraud, Waste, and Abuse,” including quantifying its impact on the state budget and identifying high-risk areas like entitlement programs and contracts. The Economic Development Committee was asked to look at tightening oversight of hotel occupancy taxes and project finance zones to protect state revenues from inefficient use.
On the House side, the new Delivery of Government Efficiency Committee was specifically charged with studying how to use technology and artificial intelligence to detect fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer resources. Almost every House committee also has standardized language requiring it to monitor agencies “including for fraud, waste, and abuse, where applicable.”
These are positive signals, but they stop far short of calling for actual spending cuts or structural limits on government growth, which has grown by 42% over just the past two sessions.3
Property Taxes
Property taxes are included in both the Senate and House interim charges, though the focus is rather limited, focusing on expanding existing exemptions and monitoring prior relief efforts.
In the Senate, the Local Government Committee received a direct charge titled “Cutting Property Taxes.” It directs the committee to examine Texas property taxes with a focus on homeowners’ school property taxes and to make recommendations for cutting Texans’ property taxes by increasing the homestead exemption (something that has been tried for years). The charge also requires the committee to determine the savings for homestead owners from lowering the age of eligibility for the senior homestead exemption from 65 to 55. A second related charge under the same committee calls for reviewing and reporting on the effects of multiple prior Senate bills that raised the homestead exemption.
In the House, the Appropriations Committee was tasked with monitoring implementation of major spending items from the 89th Legislature, specifically including “maintaining existing property tax relief and significantly increasing the homestead and business personal property tax exemptions.” Additionally, there is a dedicated “Property Tax Relief” charge that directs the Ways and Means committee to study and consider methods to “build on the property tax relief provided by the 89th Legislature.” This includes examining the benefits of compressing school district tax rates and increasing the homestead exemption, and more.
Time for Taxpayers to Speak Up
While the charges appear reasonable on the surface, true property tax relief won’t come from the incremental tweaks the Legislature has tried over the last several sessions. The only way to achieve meaningful, lasting property tax relief, and to put Texas on a pathway to property tax elimination, is to scrap the approach of recent sessions and implement bold reforms with concrete steps.4
First, stop the growth of property taxes. The most effective tool is requiring two-thirds voter approval for any tax increase. Local governments would have to ask voters before raising revenue by even a dollar. Second, reduce property taxes by empowering voters to force rollback elections on their property taxes. Third, slow or stop state and local spending growth. This means freezing state appropriations, cutting waste, fraud, and unnecessary spending, and imposing stronger limits on both state and local budgets (capping local spending growth at the lesser of population growth plus inflation or 3.5%) Fourth, eliminate school M&O property taxes, the largest portion of all property tax levies, by replacing the revenue with state surpluses created through fiscal discipline.
These steps require real fiscal restraint at all levels of government. Without them, property taxes will keep climbing, just as we have seen for years, and taxpayers cannot afford to wait for another two-year cycle of study and half-measures.5
What happens next depends on whether Texans hold their elected official’s feet to the fire.
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- https://www.ltgov.texas.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2026-Interim-Charges.pdf ↩︎
- https://www.house.texas.gov/pdfs/speaker/F-Interim-Charges-3.25.pdf ↩︎
- https://texastaxpayers.com/texas-government-keeps-getting-bigger/ ↩︎
- https://texastaxpayers.com/texas-property-taxes-increased-2-7-billion-in-2025-whats-broken-and-how-do-we-actually-fix-it/ ↩︎
- https://texastaxpayers.com/a-decade-of-government-growth-property-taxes/ ↩︎
