Ending school property taxes for homeowners would cost Texas nearly $9B per year, officials say - Community Impact Newspaper

Texas' 2026-27 budget already sets aside $51 billion for property tax relief statewide. Some Republican leaders want to go further and wipe out school property taxes for homeowners entirely, not just reduce them. School districts across Texas, including here in Lubbock, currently pull about $29 billion total from property taxes, and homeowners account for roughly $8.6 billion of that, according to Tetyana Melnyk.

For folks in Lubbock paying school taxes on a house near Tech Terrace or out toward Raintree, that's the number attached to a campaign promise that keeps getting bigger. Killing the tax outright means the state has to find billions more somewhere else. Options include sales tax, other property tax categories, or cuts elsewhere in the budget. Local school funding in Texas leans heavily on property taxes, so any plan to erase that revenue for homeowners raises the question of what replaces it and who covers the gap, businesses, renters, or the state itself.

The $51 billion already committed to tax relief turns out to be just a down payment, with another $8.6 billion a year needed to finish what Abbott promised.