..you can’t make ’em blink.
The Short Story
The Travis County Commissioners Court has so far refused to call for a full audit and to file a formal challenge to the under-valuations of commercial properties in Travis County. But some smaller taxing authorities (who, will remain anonymous at the moment) have contacted us and are preparing to go after the money they’ve been missing from the big developer boys. Meanwhile, the City of Austin just released its proposed budget and — guess what — it contains a property tax increase!
The Gory Details
On Tuesday, Chief Tax Appraiser Patrick Brown promised to ‘do better next time’ while Brian Rodgers pointed out that this was ‘just not good enough’. When County Judge Biscoe stated that he wasn’t going to support a challenge or an audit, Rodgers asked him, “I presented $120 million of missing property from the rolls. I can bring you another $120 million. You just have to tell me what your breaking point is.” So far, no response.
(Notice the lobbyists for the Real Estate Council of Austin sitting near the double doors behind Brian? The system works splendidly well for its members and they were on hand to ensure that nothing changes.)
The County appears to have based their decision not to file a challenge on the County Attorney’s advice in Executive Session that the deadline for a taxing authority to challenge the under-valuations of commercial properties was June 15th. That is not the information that we have, so we’ll see. More on this subject coming soon.
Message to the thinkers at taxing authorities: Come and get your money! It’s sitting there like a beached whale at CostofGrowth.com.
Here’s the City’s budget summary proposal released on July 22.
Note to Austin City Councilmembers: the budget proposal you were given on July 22 makes no mention of the fact that there are tens of millions of dollars per year you’ve been short-changed due to under-valuations of commercial properties in Austin. There’s also no mention of one of the most popular budget cuts mentioned by regular folks at the budget charettes. That was the Domain, good for about $2 million this year alone! Oh, sorry, we’re not supposed to talk about that.
Things are happening VERY quickly — So….
in order to complete some research, we have rescheduled our meeting for Thursday, July 30, 7 pm. We apologize for the inconvenience, but hope more of you will be able to attend.
so we can plan refreshments and a larger room please. You can call us at 383-8484.
GET ACTIVE and seize the moment before it seizes you!