Georgetown ISD Property Taxes

The previous post on Georgetown ISD factoids used a chart from GISD that left the erroneous impression that school taxes have not been increasing over time. Of course any property owner within the district knows that is not true.

As a proxy for the typical homeowners property tax annual increase, the district provides the assessed/appraised value in their annual financial reports. Here is a chart showing the annual growth in assessed value within the district to which they apply the tax rate.

Click chart to enlarge

Thus it is observed that the assessed value has been increasing over the last nine years at a compound rate of 7.37%. Over that same time period the tax rate has also increased so it is safe to say that the taxes that property owners in GISD pay have grown at a rate greater than 7.37% annually.

Remember from the previous post that the number of students increased by only 527 out of approximately 10,000 over the last 5 years. That equates to a 0.99% compound annual increase.

In line with other local government entities, GISD is taking money from property tax payers at a rate greater than population growth plus inflation. What is the justification for that?