'Travis County now has the highest urban county tax rate in Texas.
It's not unusual for a candidate to bemoan taxes. Still, Andy Brown's claim in a mailer stopped us short: 'Travis County now has the highest urban county tax rate in Texas.' Brown, an Austin lawyer running for Travis County judge, aired his statement under an arrow suggesting county tax bills steadily escalated while his Democratic primary opponent, Sarah Eckhardt, served on the Travis County Commissioners Court. We're focusing here on whether the county has the highest tax rate of the state's urban counties. By email, Brown's campaign manager, Jim Wick, told us the campaign compared the 2012 total tax rate for Travis County with the rate in other counties that are home to the state's five largest cities. Wick included a chart indicating that in this subset, the Travis County rate of $0.5001 per $100 property valuation exceeded the rates in Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar and El Paso counties. El Paso County, Brown's chart indicates, had the next-highest rate, $0.40887 per $100 valuation. 'Since there is no statutory definition of an urban county, we defined it as a county that has a 'big city' in it that is often compared to other big cities around Texas,' Wick wrote. By phone, he said: 'We were trying to compare apples to apples.' We took our own, broader look. Online, the Texas Association of Counties drew on data collected by the state comptroller's office to create a chart listing the 'general fund property tax rates' for every Texas county for 1996 through 2012. Among the 15 most populous counties, the chart and our own web research suggested that in 2012 and 2013, Travis County had the second-highest total property tax rate--topped only by Hidalgo County, which is home to McAllen near the Texas-Mexico border. Hidalgo County's rate of $0.59 per $100 valuation in 2012 and 2013 compared with Travis County's respective rates of $0.5001 and $0.4946 per $100 valuation. Among these 15 counties, Travis-neighboring Williamson County had the third-highest 2013 rate, $0.49029 per $100 valuation. Travis County's rates in 2012 and 2013 far outpaced the total rates in the state's four more populous counties. In this subgroup, the next-closest 2013 rate--$0.40021 per $100 valuation--was levied by the most populous county, Harris. The other more populous counties and their total tax rates: Dallas ($0.2431 per $100 valuation); Tarrant ($0.2640 per $100 valuation); and Bexar ($0.296187 per $100 valuation).
Our ruling Brown said Travis County now has the highest urban county tax rate in Texas. Travis County had the second-highest total property tax rate of the state's 15 most populous counties in 2012 and 2013, we found, also levying the highest rate of the state's seven most populous counties. But in contrast to Brown's message, Travis County's tip-top ranking isn't new. The county's rate has exceeded the rates of more populous counties every year since 1996. We rate this claim, which lacked these clarifications, as Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE - The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.