City Council moves to lower maximum property tax rate

Photo courtesy City of Austin

The 2013–14 Austin City Council: Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole, Councilman Bill Spelman, Councilwoman Laura Morrison, Mayor Lee Leffingwell, Councilwoman Kathie Tovo, Councilman Chris Riley and Councilman Mike Martinez

Austin City Council approved a resolution Aug. 19 to lower the property tax rate by 2.18 cents per $100 assessed home value.

The current property tax rate is 50.27 cents per $100 assessed value, but the new maximum rate in the resolution that passed is 48.09 cents per $100 assessed value.

The decision to lower the rate comes after homeowners in the Austin community have voiced concerns at previous City Council meetings about how much their property taxes have increased this year and years before.

"The effect of what we did today is set the maximum tax rate that we would consider and we cannot go above that now because it's state law, but we can go below it," Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell said.

With that rate, the current average single family home is $326,998, according to the June Austin Real Estate Report, and would have a maximum $1,572.53 in property taxes.

The current goal of council is to reduce the tax rate about two cents more than the maximum, but Leffingwell said that is not a goal they're likely to reach this year.

"The ideal is to get back to the effective tax rate, which is about 46 cents per $100 but we're not going to get there. I don't think it's realistic to say that," Leffingwell said.