(KXII) – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Tuesday an investigation into nearly 1,000 cities in the state for possible violations of Texas’ new municipal transparency law, SB 1851.
In October, Paxton ordered the halting of “potentially illegal property tax increases” adopted by a number of Texas cities including Tom Bean and Whitesboro.
However, Whitesboro City Administrator Phil Harris said they did everything by the books.
The city increased property taxes from 38 to 58 cents in September, to help fund upgrades to emergency dispatch services, fire services and roads.
But, after the rate increase passed, Paxton informed the city that the tax hike was illegal under Senate Bill 1851.
“It was a little confusing,” Harris said. “I initially just read it and I said, ‘that doesn’t apply to us.’”
The new law requires cities to complete annual audits by March in order to raise taxes. Whitesboro completed their audit in June, which falls after the March deadline specified in the new law.
However, Harris argued that Senate Bill 1851 does not apply to this year’s audit since the law did not take effect until September, after Whitesboro’s June audit completion.
“We don’t believe we violated the law,” Harris said.
In addition, Harris said Whitesboro has received no further communication from the attorney general’s office.
“We’ve heard nothing,” he said. “We have asked if there’s anything else we need to provide, if there’s any news coming out, and we’ve not received anything. I don’t know that we’ll ever see a response.”
Harris said he’s concern that by the time the state reviews all the requested data from all the different cities, it will already be the next tax year.
“That is just wasting time, people’s time,” he said. “They’ve got other things to do for their citizens of their communities than respond to a request that may never get looked at.”
While waiting for a resolution, Whitesboro will set aside all revenue from the tax increase until Paxton responds or sufficient time passes.
“We’ll report on that every month,” he said. “It’s in a separate account, we’ll have it down to the penny.”
KXII 12 will continue to follow this story.
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