Lavaca County
Elections
propositions

Lavaca County voters back state propositions

  • Locals back both propositions, which dealt with property tax matters.
    Locals back both propositions, which dealt with property tax matters.

    Lavaca County voters backed the state’s two propositional changes to the Texas constitution overwhelmingly Saturday, May 7, unofficial election night returns showed.

    According to unofficial numbers released the county elections administrator Amy Kloesel late Saturday, local voters supported Prop 1 by a vote 1,553-293 on Saturday, with absentee ballots voting 275-45 in favor, early voters supporting it 676-151 and election day voters also backing it 602-97.

    Prop 2 won even greater support in Lavaca County by winning the overall vote 1,612-289, with absentee ballots adding 273-55 votes in favor, early voters adding 721-133 more and election day voters rounding it all out with 618-101 votes on Saturday, unofficially.

    Prop 1 authorizes lawmakers to provide for the reduction of a limitation on total ad valorem taxes that may be imposed for public school purposes on the residence homestead of a person who is elderly or disabled to reflect any statutory reduction from the preceding tax year in the maximum compressed rate of the maintenance and operations taxes imposed for those purposes on the homestead.

    So, what all that mean, exactly? Writers with the Texas Tribune offered a fine explanation, we thought.

    “Homeowners who are disabled or 65 years and older can qualify for having school district property taxes capped or frozen. But when lawmakers in 2019 passed legislation to offset rising property values with lower school district tax rates for all homeowners, those adjustments did not account for elderly and disabled homeowners whose property taxes were already frozen.

    “Under Prop 1, those homeowners could qualify for those additional reductions in 2023 if the measure passes,” Texas State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, who wrote the legislation calling for the constitutional amendment, told Texas Trib.

    The change would lower those homeowners’ property taxes further, but would not eliminate their property tax cap. “The frozen value unfreezes and then refreezes lower each year,” Bettencourt said.

    Prop 2 increases the amount of the residence homestead exemption for public school purposes from $25,000 to $40,000. The measure could save the average homeowner about $175 annually on taxes paid, Bettencourt said. It takes effect this year.

    Some 1,995 voters turned out Saturday from Lavaca County, unofficial numbers showed, representing 14.46% of the county’s 13,800 total registered voters.