While the Texas legislature’s proposal to lower school property taxes promises to benefit homeowners, the way it will be done could become a nightmare for taxing entities, especially school districts.

The plan to increase the homestead exemption to $100,000 for homeowners while further lowering the school property tax rate could save an average $1,350 per year, but the timing could delay property tax bills and revenues, or cause districts to issue refunds.

The current exemption is $40,000. Voters will be asked to approve the $60,000 increase during the Nov. 7 general election, and it would become effective retroactively.

The Wood County Appraisal District will be certifying property values for schools, cities, the county and other taxing entities this week.

But assuming the voters approve the exemption increase as expected, their property tax bills will have to be recalculated based on the higher exemption, which also lowers the property values upon which districts base their tax rates.

Those rates and corresponding budgets must be set by the end of September.

Wood County Chief Appraiser Tracy Nichols noted that there will be a number of homesteads that will no longer pay any school taxes (those valued under $100,000).

Property tax bills normally go out around Oct. 1. Local officials will have to decide to go ahead and send them out, and then issue a refund to every homeowner, or wait until sometime after the Nov 7 election to send those bills.

The laws approved last week in the second special session of the state legislature also included a 20% cap in the annual amount that property values can be raised on non-homestead properties valued at less than $5 million.

It also includes funds that will allow school districts to lower their property tax rates by 10.7 cents.