On Monday, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar released his long-awaited Biennial Revenue Estimate (BRE) ahead of the 88th Legislative Session, which begins Tuesday. One key takeaway from Hegar’s announcement, outside of the estimate lawmakers can spend, was that the historic budget surplus facing lawmakers had grown to a record $32.7 billion, surpassing the previous estimate of nearly $27 billion by more than $5 billion. Both Hegar and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick have declared this surplus a “historic, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Texas.”

TFR President Tim Hardin responded with this statement:

“The 88th Texas Legislature has a historic opportunity to give Texans the biggest property tax break in the history of the state. This is probably the best and possibly only opportunity for lawmakers to help taxpayers with the ongoing affordability crisis in Texas. Taxpayers have not only demanded they be given back the money that the state government has over-collected from them, but that we move forward on a path toward, as Governor Abbott recently said, ‘school property tax elimination, so Texans can actually own their homes.’ We look forward to holding lawmakers accountable with this historic opportunity on behalf of all Texas taxpayers.”