Maverick County Tax Rollback Petitioners Request State Agencies’ Assistance – Open Letter

February 7, 2017

Mike Esparza, Director of Property Tax Assistance Division and
The Honorable Glenn Hegar, Texas Comptroller
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
P.O. Box 13528
Austin, TX 78711-3528

Keith Ingram, Director of Elections Division
Texas Secretary of State
P.O. Box 12060
Austin, TX 78711-2060

The Honorable Rolando B. Pablos, Texas Secretary of State
Texas Secretary of State
P.O. Box 12697
Austin, TX 78711-2697

County Violating Election Code to Prevent Holding Tax Rate Rollback Election Per Tax Code

Mr. Esparza, Mr. Hegar, Mr. Ingram and Mr. Pablos:

Maverick County is one of 123 Texas counties whose voters approved a Half Cent Additional Sales Tax for property tax relief around 1988 (Authority Code 4159009) and so far this year the County has received three payments from the Comptroller’s Office (one month lag – Nov 16, Dec 16 & Jan 17) totaling nearly $600,000.  Through an open records request, taxpayers obtained a copy of the County Tax Assessor Collector’s Additional Sales Tax Worksheet calculation as of September 16, 2016 showing the (Half Cent Additional) Sales Tax Adjustment Rate of .129696 that was correctly reduced from the County’s Rollback Tax Rate to accomplish property tax relief.  However, for the first time in 5-25 plus years since voter approval of the Half Cent Additional Sales Tax for property tax relief, Commissioners Court at its September 29, 2016 meeting (after 6 hours of deliberation in executive session) knowingly decided to not adopt the Tax Assessor’s 9/16/16 calculation to prevent the .129696 Sales Tax Adjustment Rate reduction from the County’s Rollback Tax Rate in order to avoid cutting close to $3 million in unfunded Maintenance & Operations expenses from its budget pursuant to the annual budget requirement of Local Government Code Section 111 for counties to only include expenses supported by revenue.  

The County Tax Assessor Collector was sent a set of questions (noting tax bills didn’t show property taxes saved by the Additional Sales Tax for property tax relief as required by Tax Code Section 31.01(i)) in which she was asked to confirm the existence of the County’s Half Cent Additional Sales Tax for property tax relief and that property tax relief is accomplished by subtracting the Sales Tax Adjustment Rate from the property tax rate, to identify a year prior to fiscal year 9/30/12 where the Sales Tax Adjustment Rate wasn’t subtracted from the property tax rate and to confirm that Commissioners Court decided to disregard her 9/16/16 calculation at its September 29, 2016 meeting, but she gave no response.

The Half Cent Additional Sales Tax was approved by voters for property tax relief not double taxation, so we are contacting the State to ask for the Comptroller’s Office to suspend sending any further Half Cent Additional Sales Tax payments to the County this year until it either holds the Tax Rate Rollback Election to fully reduce the Sales Tax Adjustment Rate from the property tax rate or simply lowers the County property tax rate to this level because the Additional Sales Tax is still being collected.  Though there was a Court meeting on October 11, 2016 to adopt an overall tax rate that was lower by .044226 (resulting in an increase to the Maintenance & Operations tax revenues by almost 38% over the previous year versus 52%), taxpayers are still due the .08547 difference remaining from the .129696 Sales Tax Adjustment Rate as calculated by the Tax Assessor on 9/16/16 (about $1,900,000 in refunds from taxes billed).

Threats of defunding are likely being used by Commissioners Court to intimidate the County Tax Assessor Collector and County Elections Office Head into ignoring lowly taxpayers without the resources to challenge them, but the County reached this point by brushing off almost every level of taxpayer protection put into state laws by the legislature or afforded by the Texas Constitution.  Taxpayers only began a Tax Rate Rollback Petition to hold a Rollback Election to force the Sales Tax Adjustment Rate reduction as the last resort available under state law after the County first deprived taxpayers of their right to file an injunction to stop tax bills from being issued using the wrong property tax rate (pursuant to another section of the Tax Code) by knowingly violating Local Government Code 140.010(h) to delay taxpayers access to information on how the tax rate was calculated until after tax bills were sent out by the Tax Assessor Collector.  Not to mention that before moving the Rollback Petition minimum signatures needed goal line, the County Elections Office first threw out signatures of 246 registered voters in violation of the Election Code which would have further increased the Petition’s margin of success.   

These rogue actions by county officials will surely be an interesting future case study in bad government for trainings across Texas, but at the moment there is a community of 30,000 taxpayers in dire need of assistance from the only place with authority to address it.  We understand the State of Texas is presently busy making new laws, but do ask that all existing state laws be enforced to prevent this incredulous level of taxpayer abuse from continuing in our great state.  Please contact me if other information is needed.

Thank you,

Ethelvina I. Felan
Maverick County Taxpayer