As part of the mission of the Senior Leadership
Northeast Group, we identified that rapidly increasing homestead
property tax was impairing the quality of life for over-65 homestead
property taxpayers in the 15 cities in northeast Tarrant County.
These taxes included city, county, Tarrant County Junior College,
Tarrant County Hospital taxes, and public school tax.
Of course public school taxes had been frozen for
over-65 homestead property owners quite a number of years
previously. After researching the Texas Constitution, we found
that there was no provision in the Constitution for decreasing taxes
for over-65 homestead property owners regarding city, county,
Tarrant County Junior College, and Tarrant County Hospital taxes.
As a result, it was obvious that the only way to help over-65
homestead taxpayers in northeast Tarrant County was to get the Texas
Constitution changed. We proposed that the Constitutional
change treat over-65 homestead property tax for city, county,
Tarrant County Junior College, and Tarrant County Hospital taxes in
the same manner it treats public school tax.
Members of this organization which includes
several members of the Texas Silver Haired Legislature worked very
hard on this initiative to get it on the September 2003 ballot.
Members of this organization rigorously coordinated through email,
this web site, face to face conversations and by telephone with
legislators and members of organizations throughout Texas to get
this issue on the the September 2003 ballot. Unfortunately, tax related to Tarrant County Hospitals was not
specifically included in the ballot language, so the Tarrant County
District Attorney's office has taken the position that the County
Hospital tax can not
be frozen. About 81% of voters approved the ballot issue in
September 2003.
Many people are responsible for the success of
the issue on the 2003 ballot. It is clear that members of the
Northeast Senior Leadership Group had a significant impact on its
success. The commendable attitude within the Group has been
that you can get a lot of things done if you don't worry about who
gets the credit. We can accurately say that we would not have been
successful in our efforts without our members of the Texas Silver
Haired Legislature such as Jack Lewis, Howard Stone, Oscar Garcia,
and David Baltimore. We are pleased that Oscar Garcia was
recognized as the 2006 Fort Worth Man of the Year in part due to his
efforts on this initiative.
On November 7, 2006 about 88% of Tarrant County
Voters approved Proposition One to freeze homestead
tax for over 65 and disabled taxpayers. Except for the city of
Grapevine, all homestead property tax for disabled and over-65
5taxpayers in the 15 northeast Tarrant County cities included in our
mission statement were
frozen. City of Grapevine officials have not responded
positively to
requests to freeze homestead tax for disabled and over-65 homestead taxpayers
despite their significant advantage of having many millions of
dollars in their property tax base from DFW Airport.
At the time of this writing in January 2007, the
Texas Silver Haired Legislature web site (CLICK HERE)
reports that 55 counties, 100 cities or
municipalities, and 9 junior college districts throughout Texas have
had tax frozen for disabled and over-65 taxpayers since the
September 2003 change to the Texas Constitution. Since the
Texas Silver Haired Legislature continues to track and report on
their website the status of the tax freeze for all Texas cities and
counties, we have decided to cease tracking the freeze status
throughout Texas. Eventually, we expect that these taxes will
be frozen throughout Texas.
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