{"id":763945,"date":"2026-04-30T15:52:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T15:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/763945\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T15:52:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T15:52:54","slug":"bexar-county-forecasts-its-worst-year-for-property-tax-revenue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/763945\/","title":{"rendered":"Bexar County forecasts its ‘worst year for property tax revenue’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bexar County\u2019s top budget and finance experts say the county is headed for some tough financial straits, thanks to slowed growth that hasn\u2019t ticked back up in several years now.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week county staff received its first report on 2026 property valuations from the Bexar Central Appraisal District \u2014 offering an early look at the revenue the county can expect to collect from property taxes. <\/p>\n

Afterwards County Manager David Smith said he asked the budget department to quickly turn around a presentation<\/a> for the county\u2019s elected leaders so there would be no surprises about the tough budget cycle to come. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur year-over-year growth in property assessed values, including new construction, has declined in a period of a few years \u2014 from double-digit growth, to barely any growth at all,\u201d Smith told the commissioners Tuesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe last time we [saw] numbers this low \u2026 it was right after the financial crash of 2008,\u201d he added. \u201cWe are looking at that level of property tax decline \/ no growth, which is highly unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the bullish housing markets, Bexar County\u2019s total property values rose by an average of 16% in 2023 and 28% in 2022, before cooling off to about\u00a02.4% in 2024<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a02.1% in 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month the appraisal district reported that Bexar County\u2019s overall property values<\/a> were in line with the more recent years, rising by about 2.5% in 2026.<\/p>\n

But the growth wasn\u2019t felt equally throughout the county, with many home values actually declining in value as businesses and multi-family properties went up. <\/p>\n

At the same time, new development that\u2019s helped make up for a decline in existing property values in recent years seems to be slowing. <\/p>\n

\u201cData, both locally and nationally, suggest a pretty dramatic slowdown in new housing construction sales,\u201d Smith said. <\/p>\n

As it stands, existing properties in Bexar County were valued at $4.8 billion less than the previous year, according to the county\u2019s presentation. <\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Courtesy Bexar County<\/p>\n

The county is adding $6.8 billion in new growth to the tax rolls in 2026 \u2014 putting projected revenue in the positive for now \u2014 but still must take into account revenue lost from property owners who successfully challenge their valuations. <\/p>\n

Once the valuations are finalized in July, the county projects its property tax revenue will actually be down 1.7% from the previous year.<\/p>\n

\u201cEssentially, you\u2019re looking at a decline in overall assessed values, which I would say would be greater than what we saw after the housing crash,\u201d Smith said. <\/p>\n

In recent years, slowed growth has hit the city of San Antonio much harder than<\/a> Bexar County, because so much of the new development was happening outside the urban core.<\/p>\n

City leaders have already been looking at raising taxes and fees<\/a> this year to bridge the gap, and will receive their own five-year financial forecast next week.<\/p>\n

Budget cuts to come<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Smith warned county leaders to buckle up for tough spending decisions on the horizon. <\/p>\n

While the city has more varied revenue streams, about 80% of the county\u2019s general fund comes from property taxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s very little you can do, other than raise taxes, to affect the revenue side,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe don\u2019t assume you\u2019re increasing the taxes in this forecast. What you do control, to some degree, is the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, county staff projected that without major spending adjustments, Bexar County\u2019s general fund needs would exceed its revenue by $28 million by fiscal year 2028.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, that projection had been adjusted to $148 million by fiscal year 2028, as the county lowered the amount it expects to collect in property tax revenue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The previous budget forecast assumed growth of about 2.7% to 3.4% over the next five years, said Budget and Finance Director Tanya Gaitan.<\/p>\n

But after receiving new information from the appraisal district, those forecasts have been adjusted to -1.7% growth projected in fiscal year 2027, flat revenue in fiscal year 2028, then 1% in fiscal year 2029.<\/p>\n

Smith said that if this year\u2019s projection is correct, the -1.7% revenue would be worse than the county has seen in decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that ends up happening, it will exceed what we actually experienced in our worst year after the housing crash by quite a bit,\u201d he said. \u201cThis would be the worst year for property tax revenue that we\u2019ve seen \u2014 well, certainly since I\u2019ve seen \u2014 and that\u2019s going on 30 budgets now.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the 2008 financial crisis, Smith said the county avoided laying off staff and cutting programs by putting off cost-of-living adjustments for county employees, not back-filling vacant positions, adjusting employee health insurance plans, and pausing on new capital projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if these forecast numbers hold without any other mitigation, I can\u2019t predict what menu of actions would be needed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The county\u2019s fiscal year starts in October, and the commissioners approve a budget in September.<\/p>\n

It will be County Judge Peter Sakai\u2019s last budget, before a new county judge is elected in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just wanted to get in front of you and the rest of the county will let you know right now \u2014 this will not be \u2018steady as she goes\u2019 kind of budget,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bexar County\u2019s top budget and finance experts say the county is headed for some tough financial straits, thanks…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":763946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,7288,97972,294738,313785,88592,313786,9423,7202,7203,358,7453,3187,7815,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,20705],"class_list":["post-763945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-america","tag-bexar-county","tag-bexar-county-budget","tag-bexar-county-commisioners-court","tag-budget-forecast","tag-david-smith","tag-property-tax-revenue","tag-property-taxes","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-texas","tag-top-story","tag-tx","tag-typedaily","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wc-750-1000"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116494467591030080","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}