More than 130 Texas cities are prohibited from raising their property tax rates because they failed to comply with annual financial audit requirements, including filing them on time, state Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Thursday.
A crackdown on audit filings began in October under a Texas law that took effect Sept. 1, authorizing anyone to submit a
If verified by the attorney general, the city is prohibited from adopting a property tax rate that exceeds its no-new-revenue tax rate for the tax year that begins on or after the date of the attorney general's determination.
"I will not allow cities to unlawfully raise taxes on hardworking Texans. That is why I took aggressive action against over 130 Texas cities to hold them accountable and ensure they comply with state law," Paxton said in a statement. "Cities cannot fail to abide by state audit requirements without consequences."
A list of the mostly smaller cities notified of the tax increase prohibition by the attorney general
The ongoing crackdown, which initially targeted four cities,
One of the first cities targeted for late audits and ordered in October to halt "potentially illegal" tax increases was Odessa. The city has pushed back against the probe, with Mayor Cal Hendrick
The Republican attorney general's initial probe also targeted La Marque, Whitesboro, as well as Tom Bean, which was the only one appearing on the list released Thursday.
Audit timings for cities with populations of 10,000 or more have improved in the wake of the law. Out of 93 cities that exceeded the requirement for filing fiscal 2024 audits by two days to as many as 521 days, 46 filed fiscal 2025 audits in under 180 days, according to Merritt Research Services data as of late April.
