A record number of property tax lawsuits coupled with a delay in applied homestead exemptions for 11,000 homeowners has left Montgomery County with a $2.3 billion loss in property value and a revenue shortage of almost $6 million.
“In 38 years of doing this, we have never had a year quite like this one,” Tax Assessor-Collector Tammy McRae said during a special commissioners’ court meeting Tuesday. “We lost a lot of value last year.”
McRae said as of Monday, the loss had narrowed to about $4.9 million but said she didn’t think that gap would close before the end of September.
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Commissioners will begin budget workshops Aug. 8 on the county’s proposed $419 million budget for 2024, which is almost a 6 percent increase from the $397.7 million budget for 2023.
County Judge Mark Keough asked McRae about how the county can narrow that revenue loss. She said delinquent taxpayers have been turned over for collection in an effort to get those funds.
While it is common to have property value loss, McRae said, the increase of lawsuits from 250 in 2021 to more than 700 in 2022 pushed revenue loss higher than the $754 million she predicted.
McRae said the Montgomery Central Appraisal District has 19,500 protests still pending, some likely to result in more lawsuits and revenue loss.
As for homestead exemptions, McRae said taxing jurisdictions in the county were not made aware in August 2022 when the district certified those properties at 100 percent of market value that those exemptions had not been applied.
“So, we ended up with over 11,000 homestead exemptions that were coming through,” McRae said. “That hit us pretty hard.”
Both Budget Officer Amanda Carter and Auditor Rakesh Pandey said the county has other revenue streams that will help cover that shortfall.
