PISD has adopted a tax rate of $1.13500 per $100 valuation of a home at its Aug. 20 board meeting. It’s a decrease of $0.0023 from the 2023-24 tax rate, according to district documents. However, it could result in the average homeowner paying upwards of $700 more on their total property tax bills due to the increasing values of homes in the area.
What you need to know
Tax rates for local school districts are the sum of the maintenance and operations, or M&O, and the interest and sinking, or I&S, tax rates.
The M&O tax rate is $0.7869, while the I&S tax rate is $0.3481, according to district documents. The M&O rate makes up the entire decrease when compared to last year, as it is $0.0023 lower than the district’s 2023-24 M&O rate. Its I&S rate is the same rate the district had last year, according to district documents.
These totals will mean the average homeowner will pay $3,435.40 in taxes on an average home with a taxable value of $302,678, compared to last year’s bill of $2,734.54, which came with a home with a taxable value of $240,441, according to district documents.
This is an increase of $62,237 in taxable home value, resulting in an additional $700.86 in taxes, documents show.
What they said
PISD Superintendent Larry Berger said in an Aug. 21 email that only the residents that saw their property value increase by this amount would see this increase, and the true increase for each homeowner is dependent on their property value changes from 2023 to 2024.
“We did not raise the tax rate, but your property values increased,” Berger said at the Aug. 20 meeting. “Based on that, will each individual taxpayer pay more taxes? Probably, but not because of a tax rate increase, it’s because of the property value increase.”
What else?
While the tax rate will decrease compared to last year, requirements tied to the state’s property tax code calls on board trustees to make a motion based on the no-new-revenue rate, or NNR, compared to the new tax rate approved at $1.135, according to district documents.
Compared to the NNR, which is set at $1.06202, the new tax rate is 6.87% higher. Therefore, the motion made by the board called for a “6.87% increase” to the tax rate.
The NNR is the tax rate that would be used to keep the same amount of funding coming in as the year prior, Berger said at the meeting.
The newest tax rate of $1.135 also represents the maximum the school district could approve without calling for a voter-approval tax rate election, documents show.
