One of the biggest issues in District 8 this last year was the 100% increase across most of the area in our land valuations which in turn caused astronomical property tax increases.

While most of District 8 is single family homes with homestead exemptions, the majority of Austin residents (~55%) are renters who the homestead exemptions do not benefit. In fact, the lack of exemptions on rental properties often cause the year over year taxes to increase so much that the burden of the higher appraisals are usually passed on to tenants through rent increases, which is the primary contributor to the increase in cost of living in Austin.

I currently would vote to keep homestead exemptions as a relief from the burden of our rising property taxes, however, my special project is to work with the statewide PAC that is committed to fixing the broken education funding formula “Robin Hood.” Fixing Robin Hood would allow us to remove or reduce the homestead exemption.