Every hard-working Texan knows the feeling of opening a property appraisal notice and watching the value of their home climb. While local politicians claim they are not raising your tax rates, they are secretly celebrating behind closed doors. They rely on rising valuations to extract more cash from your wallet while keeping their hands clean, playing a deceptive shell game that keeps you broke.
On September 14, 2026, the Montgomery City Council voted to approve its FY 2026-27 operating budget and set the overall ad valorem tax rate at $0.4000 per $100 valuation. As detailed in the Citizen Portal Tax Rate Report, the council bragged about maintaining a nominally flat tax rate of 40 cents. However, this is a complete illusion. By riding the wave of skyrocketing appraisals, the council engineered a massive 13.2 percent increase in total property tax revenue, bringing in an extra $292,343 directly from local property owners.
Rather than adopting the no-new-revenue tax rate, which would have adjusted to offset the appraisal spikes and kept property taxes flat in reality, the council chose to keep the nominal rate high. During the session documented in the Citizen Portal Special Meeting Recap, local officials demonstrated how they bypass the spirit of Texas tax caps. They claim to offer stability while pocketing a massive windfall that local families must scramble to pay.
This deceptive strategy is a form of passive extraction that mirrors other revenue-generating schemes across the state. A study by the Reason Foundation: Texas can do more to prevent "taxation by citation" reveals how local governments weaponize enforcement mechanisms, including municipal citations and fees, to quietly fund their bloated operating budgets. When cities rely on automatic valuation increases to bypass voter approval, they create a perverse incentive to let local government expand indefinitely. This extraction without explicit representation harms fixed-income families and small businesses alike.
Montgomery property owners must call out this budget deception for what it is. A flat rate on rising appraisals is a property tax hike, plain and simple. It is time for local taxpayers to hold the city council accountable and demand that they adopt the no-new-revenue rate next year, rather than continuing to feast on the unearned windfall of inflation.