2024 Property appraisals are out

[WithoutAClue 15337]

For Williamson county at least. Mine went up 8% which seems a little high considering the market.

oh well...

[jimmyjazz 45887]

nada for mine in Travis County.

[royiv 9247]

Just checked. 6.2% in Harris.

[Da Fino 2775]

16%. Don't like that. 

[Samson's Wig 3191]

Nothing yet for us in Travis.   

I hate looking at it, mostly because every time I see how much goes to ACC I want to murder someone.

Edited April 3 by Samson's Wig

[Steel Shank 9421]

2 hours ago, Samson's Wig said:

Nothing yet for us in Travis.   

I hate looking at it, mostly because every time I see how much goes to ACC I want to murder someone.

Free tuition for 2024 high school grads

ACC OKs fall program for eligible students

---

Lily Kepner

Austin American-Statesman USA TODAY NETWORK

---

Austin Community College will offer free tuition to eligible high school graduates starting this fall after the institution’s board of trustees on Monday night approved the five-year program.

“Today is one of those days that we’ll look back on in history and know that ACC laid the marker for something that will be definitive in making our community more livable and more effective and more economically viable,” ACC Chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart told the American-Statesman after the vote.

The pilot program will cover the full $87 per credit hour fee for in-district 2024 high school graduates for three years and for an additional two years for students who decide to pursue a bachelor’s degree at ACC. The college has committed to covering tuition for all future classes in subsequent years for the next five years. All 2024 high school seniors in the Austin, Del Valle, Elgin, Hays, Leander, Manor and Round Rock school districts are considered to be within ACC’s district, as are those in the city of Austin and portions of the Eanes and Pflugerville school districts. Those in the service area who completed their GED diploma after July 1, 2023, are also eligible.

Students from the 19 school districts within ACC’s service area but who are not in-district would only pay the outof- district fee, or $201 per semester credit hour, about a 30% reduction in tuition.

Textbooks and program-specific fees are not covered under the ACC Free Tuition pilot program, and nondistrict students and those who are currently enrolled are not eligible to participate.

The board on Monday approved the

 

pilot program with eight members voting in favor and one abstaining. Barbara Mink, the board’s chair, abstained in favor of devoting more attention to current students’ needs, such as mental health support and child care.

“I’d rather see the work done first before we offer free tuition,” Mink said at the meeting in explaining her vote.

The board passed the vote with a plan to create a process for current students who are 15 credit hours away from completing their degree to apply for funding to cover the rest of their schooling. That plan was not passed as an amendment, but members were in favor of discussing at their next meeting what this process would look like and the expected cost.

“We all came at this knowing this was the right thing to do,” board member Gigi Edwards Bryant said in an interview after the vote. “We just had to figure out how to do it right.”

[Samson's Wig 3191]

Some folks just can't help themselves from spending other people's money.  I'm all for community college and agree with the general notion that an educated populace is a benefit to everyone, but Austin property owners are already being robbed blind to fund white suburban jesus districts across the state at the expense of our own public school children.  When is enough, enough?  I'm not convinced we're really getting a return on our investment with ACC.  Maybe the new nursing degree program will provide some community benefit, but free tuition for all from a city school with a 100 fucking percent acceptance rate is pointless unless we're firing 90% of the administrative roles.  If they can manage to truly limit this to local high school graduates who don't really attend UT and use ACC for free basic requirements, it might not be too expensive.  I'd like to see a serious tuition hike for nonresidents who come here just to attend ACC (yes that happens and we'll be flooded with them if they can find a loophole to get the free tuition), as well as non-full time students, i.e. UT and Texas State kids getting cheap credits.

tl/dr The Austin community would be better served shuttering ACC completely and finding a way to funnel those funds into AISD.  

Edited April 3 by Samson's Wig

[jimmyjazz 45887]

10 minutes ago, Samson's Wig said:

tl/dr The Austin community would be better served shuttering ACC completely and finding a way to funnel those funds into AISD.  

I can't go that far.  It's important for major metro areas to have a community college, and ACC is one of the best in the country.  However, it's also quite inexpensive because of the property taxes levied against all homeowners (and by extension, renters) -- it doesn't need to be even less expensive.  I say this as a homeowner who pays almost $20K per year in property tax AND who has sent one kid to ACC for his impending bachelor's degree (yes, they have them now) and two others for a couple of early college credits.

[Guest]

And what's with the campus in *checks notes* Elgin?

[Samson's Wig 3191]

20 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I can't go that far.  It's important for major metro areas to have a community college, and ACC is one of the best in the country.  However, it's also quite inexpensive because of the property taxes levied against all homeowners (and by extension, renters) -- it doesn't need to be even less expensive.  I say this as a homeowner who pays almost $20K per year in property tax AND who has sent one kid to ACC for his impending bachelor's degree (yes, they have them now) and two others for a couple of early college credits.

I've got no issue with community colleges, and I acknowledge their benefit to the community (although it's a stretch in Austin that community college grads are sticking around to contribute, based on the cost of living alone).  I got my foreign language credit knocked out at ACC many moons ago.  However, ACC is drastically overfunded to the point of comical bloat when we can't even provide grade schools with functioning HVAC systems or potable water for the children here. We're talking about free tuition for high school grads when we're not even educating our high schoolers adequately.  We've got this all backward.  I understand the funding works differently for each, but that doesn't change the underlying reality and our lack of motivation to do anything about it.  I pay a similar amount of property taxes as you do each year, and it's tiring knowing how little we get back for the trouble.  ACC is just one of many problems, but this latest move for free tuition feels like blatantly laughing in taxpayers' faces.  When this group of blowhards is sitting around talking about free tuition, that's a sign that ACC already has too much money, not that it needs more (which will be the end result of this policy).

Further, the ACC board and admin have been running wild for a long, long time. It's a huge money grab and the benefit does not align with the cost, IMO.   If either middle school kids or community college students have to go to classrooms infested with rats, I know which one I would choose.  Austin has chosen differently. 

[bschoolprof 6252]

mine went down 4%, but the assessed value went up 5% due to several years of prior appreciation that got capped at 10%.  So my taxes will of course go up.  

[jimmyjazz 45887]

Yeah, Austin has a long history of questionable decisions regarding education.  Follow the money.  We live in a neighborhood that feeds Doss/Murchison/Anderson, but our kids all went to McCallum (two because we used to live in that feed and the other two because they did Fine Arts).

In the past few years, Doss was completely rebuilt from the ground up as a stunning, multistory elementary school.  McCallum HS has racoons falling out of the ceiling and the AC doesn't work in half the classrooms.  Consider the neighborhoods.

[swraith 345]

I still see blank values for 2024 for Travis County.

[LCHorn 2612]

45 minutes ago, Samson's Wig said:

Further, the ACC board and admin have been running wild for a long, long time. It's a huge money grab and the benefit does not align with the cost, IMO.   If either middle school kids or community college students have to go to classrooms infested with rats, I know which one I would choose.  Austin has chosen differently. 

Surely you understand that Austin citizens can’t simply repurpose tax revenue from ACC to AISD, right?  If you want to complain about the state recapture impoverishing Austin students you’re welcome to join the party but reducing ACC taxes won’t help.  
 

On the appraised value side, I still haven’t had my arbitration following my 2023 tax protest when they claimed my value went up 20%.

[B00M 6413]

1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

I say this as a homeowner who pays almost $20K per year in property tax

 

50 minutes ago, Samson's Wig said:

I've got no issue with community colleges, and I acknowledge their benefit to the community (although it's a stretch in Austin that community college grads are sticking around to contribute, based on the cost of living alone).  I got my foreign language credit knocked out at ACC many moons ago. 

Yeah, outside of the trades related courses, it’s a joke of a school that only serves to allow kids to get college level credits without having to put forth college level effort. Maybe it helps raise the worst students up to a barely functioning level. Maybe that’s enough value-add to the community. Maybe the new 4 year programs have elevated the rest of the school. For your mental health, you’re better off getting blackout drunk and just writing the check instead of analyzing where your taxes go. 

[LCHorn 2612]

5 minutes ago, B00M said:

Yeah, outside of the trades related courses, it’s a joke of a school that only serves to allow kids to get college level credits without having to put forth college level effort.

Granted this is 20 years ago, but I attended ACC for a year while I was suspended from UT and I thought the quality of the instruction was better than I expected (and certainly no worse that I was getting at UT).  For one, quite a few of the instructors were UT professors with a side gig, and others appreciated being able to teach without the pressure to publish, fundraise, and fight for tenure.  

I was actually thinking, in my reply to @Samson's Wig, that maybe one solution would be more partnerships with AISD that would allow ACC to be on high school campuses for AP or introductory college classes (and maybe AISD could save on labor) but I bet they do that already or the savings just doesn’t move the overall needle by much.  

[DaysOff 7947]

I assume AISD has a robust dual credit program in their high schools already. My youngest graduated high school in Comal with 40 hours of college credit. AP is a scam. Dual credit is where it's at kids.

[LCHorn 2612]

3 minutes ago, DaysOff said:

I assume AISD has a robust dual credit program in their high schools already. My youngest graduated high school in Comal with 40 hours of college credit. AP is a scam. Dual credit is where it's at kids.
 

I was thinking something like that-obviously I’m out of the loop.

Anyway, back on the subject of property taxes, our top ten problems by rank of priority are recapture repeated 10x, then maybe Travis County taxes, then CofA, then ACC, imo.  I know everyone wants to bitch about city of Austin services but at least they exist.  Travis County, comparatively, gets none of the scrutiny and they are quite content to take our tax dollars, build a few roads, and haphazardly run the appraisal district.  

 

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

Got my Wilco appraisal. Went from 450k to 500k. Not sure whether to be annoyed that it went up that much or grateful that it’s at least 50k under market value. A pretty similar house just went for 600k.

[The Dog 44019]

On 4/3/2024 at 2:18 PM, bschoolprof said:

mine went down 4%, but the assessed value went up 5% due to several years of prior appreciation that got capped at 10%.  So my taxes will of course go up.  

that happened to us last year. weird seeing taxes go up when your appraisal goes down.

[Jameslaw121 4448]

[MonkeyDoughnut 10227]

9%.... Yeah.... more taxes....

[chainsaw 9857]

contest contest contest

[SquishMitten 10403]

On 4/3/2024 at 3:20 PM, LCHorn said:

I was actually thinking, in my reply to @Samson's Wig, that maybe one solution would be more partnerships with AISD that would allow ACC to be on high school campuses for AP or introductory college classes (and maybe AISD could save on labor) but I bet they do that already or the savings just doesn’t move the overall needle by much.  

If someone were creative enough, I bet there’s a way to make that a condition for all the funds they get. Sort of a loophole to funnel money through ACC, but then they spend it to build/rebuild/remodel/etc any high school campuses where they offer instruction. 

[SquishMitten 10403]

2 hours ago, Larry T. Spider said:

Got my Wilco appraisal. Went from 450k to 500k. Not sure whether to be annoyed that it went up that much or grateful that it’s at least 50k under market value. A pretty similar house just went for 600k.

Nice humblebrag. My pool house is only appraised at $400k.

[Texas Jeff 1944]

On 4/3/2024 at 3:20 PM, LCHorn said:

I was actually thinking, in my reply to @Samson's Wig, that maybe one solution would be more partnerships with AISD that would allow ACC to be on high school campuses for AP or introductory college classes (and maybe AISD could save on labor) but I bet they do that already or the savings just doesn’t move the overall needle by much.  

Austin ISD offers at least three ways to get college credit, maybe more.  Most are free or cheap and cover the basics for a kid's first year or two of college.

Students can take AP classes, and then take the AP test, and maybe get credit if a college offers credit.  Austin ISD provides the AP teachers and the class, and the student signs up for the test.  The test is $98, but economically disadvantaged kids pay around $21.

Students can take ACC dual-credit classes, where the student is enrolled at ACC and high school in the same class.  Most of the "ACC" teachers for this are actually Austin ISD high school teachers with the credentials to teach at ACC.  The student ends up with high school credit and ACC credit, and the ACC credit can usually transfer elsewhere.  I think public schools in Texas are required to accept the credit.

Students can take UT On-Ramps classes, where the student is enrolled at UT and the school.  UT provides the curriculum.  The student ends up with UT credit.  It's like ACC dual credit but the kid earns UT class credit using UT content.

The district has a number of "early college" high schools, which are mostly the schools with the highest percentage of low economic students.  At these schools, students can earn an associate's degree from ACC while still in high school, leaving them with just two years left to complete a degree.  Eastside Memorial is across the street from an ACC campus.  I think ACC classes are already free for kids in high school, but I can't remember for sure.

There's no reason why an Austin ISD student can't knock out most of their freshman year and a big chunk of their sophomore year at almost no cost.  The district also has a fire academy, cooking schools, nursing training and bunch of other CTE stuff for kids that are not college bound.

[Okie State 3807]

Looks like ours went down in Harris County. I'll take it.

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

2 hours ago, SquishMitten said:

Nice humblebrag. My pool house is only appraised at $400k.

Lol at 500k being a humblebrag in the Austin area. It’s a 3/2 in the burbs.

[SquishMitten 10403]

Either you missed the joke, or you actually have a kickass pool house 

[Welshy 907]

[Newdoc 3439]

I would think values in the state would be relatively stagnant considering some headwinds against value increases. Appraisal districts likely don't care. The likelihood of the general populace putting up a sustained effort against their assholery is low and they know it. 

[Captainant 27628]

On 4/4/2024 at 8:35 PM, Okie State said:

Looks like ours went down in Harris County. I'll take it.

Just got my letter in the mail, mine went down too for HCAD

[TexasCPA 102]

Mine went up 3% in Harris county. I live in west u so not an insignificant amount. Should I even bother contesting? 
Looks like it is now at the value we bought a couple of years ago. 

[CooterBrown 18003]

Yeah, Austin has a long history of questionable decisions regarding education.  Follow the money.  We live in a neighborhood that feeds Doss/Murchison/Anderson, but our kids all went to McCallum (two because we used to live in that feed and the other two because they did Fine Arts).
In the past few years, Doss was completely rebuilt from the ground up as a stunning, multistory elementary school.  McCallum HS has racoons falling out of the ceiling and the AC doesn't work in half the classrooms.  Consider the neighborhoods.

I’ve heard from a reliable source that in the next major bond package (probably 10 years away) there’s a plan for McCallum to be rebuilt into a 4 story high school. They’d build the majority of it on the baseball/softball fields so the school can stay open during construction. When complete, new ball fields and the remainder of the new campus would be built on the old school location. The teams would practice and play at northwest park in the interim.

[Samson's Wig 3191]

On 4/3/2024 at 2:19 PM, jimmyjazz said:

Yeah, Austin has a long history of questionable decisions regarding education.  Follow the money.  We live in a neighborhood that feeds Doss/Murchison/Anderson, but our kids all went to McCallum (two because we used to live in that feed and the other two because they did Fine Arts).

In the past few years, Doss was completely rebuilt from the ground up as a stunning, multistory elementary school.  McCallum HS has racoons falling out of the ceiling and the AC doesn't work in half the classrooms.  Consider the neighborhoods.

No doubt.  We're in the Murchison/Anderson zone, but the kids are in the fine arts academy at Lamar, and both want to go to McCallum.   It drives me nuts that AISD refuses to officially call the FAA a magnet program (even though that's exactly what it is in every respect), so they don't have to provide buses for the kids.  Dropoff and pickup is like an elementary school on crazy pills.  I understand it's a budgeting issue, but that brings us back around to how insane it is that we paid (checks notes) around $10kin property taxes for AISD last year, and we have rats and raccoons running around classrooms with kids in them while suburban kids get palaces that we pay for.  We can't even get our kids a ride to school.  The way the State of Texas treats Austin residents is how violent revolutions have been started in the past.  We have no representation whatsoever, and the clown show is happy to keep robbing us blind and just handing it over to suburbs (or the general fund) because they're mostly white, evangelical, and vote for the current state leadership.  It's insane and something you'd expect in a banana republic, not the United States.

McCallum is getting a renovation over the next few years, finally.  My kids will be going there during the construction, which I don't love but they're damn near insistent upon it.  AISD seems happy to let Lamar continue to be a rat-infested dump.  At least the programs have been good, and we'd still rather our kids attend a dump where they don't ban books, worry about drag queens instead of ministers, or teach religion as a counterpoint to science like in the burbs.  But it still sucks that this state is so hostile to the citizens of Austin, who are bankrolling the rest of the state in more ways than one.  Is there a historical precedent for a city seceding from a state?  That would be interesting.

[Samson's Wig 3191]

2 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

I’ve heard from a reliable source that in the next major bond package (probably 10 years away) there’s a plan for McCallum to be rebuilt into a 4 story high school. They’d build the majority of it on the baseball/softball fields so the school can stay open during construction. When complete, new ball fields and the remainder of the new campus would be built on the old school location. The teams would practice and play at northwest park in the interim.

McCallum is being renovated in phases.  The first bond package already passed.  It will take two more to get it all completed though based on the current plan (which is really fucking stupid).  First phase will be starting fairly soon. Like most things with AISD, it's a clusterfuck.   I just don't want my kids stuck in portables the entirety of high school, but I'll be shocked if they actually start demoing anything before 2030, when they graduate. 

https://macshieldonline.com/60278/news-2/bond-renovation-plans-take-shape/#:~:text=A floor plan layout of,to pass in Central Texas.

Edited April 6 by Samson's Wig

[jimmyjazz 45887]

My kid played soccer for McCallum.  That soccer "field" is literally the worst he's ever played on, and I'm including some of those gopher holed dumps in Pflugerville.

He lost almost an entire spring because he took a spill on that goat corral and screwed up his hip.

[Samson's Wig 3191]

3 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

My kid played soccer for McCallum.  That soccer "field" is literally the worst he's ever played on, and I'm including some of those gopher holed dumps in Pflugerville.

He lost almost an entire spring because he took a spill on that goat corral and screwed up his hip.

Yikes.  My son plays soccer as well and will be trying out for the Lamar team next year.  Thanks for giving me something else to worry about. 

[UTPhil2006 3804]

On 4/4/2024 at 5:42 PM, chainsaw said:

contest contest contest

This. If any of y’all in SA area, Austin area, or HAR covered areas want me to run comps y’all know where to find/email me 

[bborange 10045]

Up 12% in Williamson County.

[jimmyjazz 45887]

48 minutes ago, Samson's Wig said:

Yikes.  My son plays soccer as well and will be trying out for the Lamar team next year.  Thanks for giving me something else to worry about. 

Yup, my kid played Lamar A for two years.  Their field sucks too, but not as bad as McCallum's.

[bluto 4912]

The funny/not funny thing is prepare for the tax rates to go up as we’re seeing commercial values either come down from prior year or stay level for the most part. Wilco slashed about a billion of hard taxable value off the apartments alone comparing 23 value to 24 notice value, so it’ll be much more than a billion after appeals. 
 

for context a billion of taxable value is like 20k homes getting $50k taxable (homestead capped number) slashed. 

[59 Burst 434]

On 4/3/2024 at 2:32 PM, jimmyjazz said:

I can't go that far.  It's important for major metro areas to have a community college, and ACC is one of the best in the country.  However, it's also quite inexpensive because of the property taxes levied against all homeowners (and by extension, renters) -- it doesn't need to be even less expensive.  I say this as a homeowner who pays almost $20K per year in property tax AND who has sent one kid to ACC for his impending bachelor's degree (yes, they have them now) and two others for a couple of early college credits.

I’m sure you have a nice place, but damn. 20k is a lot of money.

[Samson's Wig 3191]

10 hours ago, 59 Burst said:

I’m sure you have a nice place, but damn. 20k is a lot of money.

Do you live in Austin?  You can get to $20k fairly easily (but yes, it's not average homes at that amount).  I don't think people outside of Austin realize just how much we pay in property taxes, the vast majority of which do not stay local.  It's, in part, how the state funds itself, and it should be criminal.  Almost half of it goes to AISD, which is to say it's stolen by the state to hand out to politically favorable suburban districts (and a big chunk just goes into the general fund).  Austinites are robbed blind by the State of Texas.

Edited April 7 by Samson's Wig

[MadTrapper 152]

Harris county, Heights area.  Have a rental house that went down a bit, house we homestead went up about 8%...going to protest that one and see what sticks, but there's been some renos in the neighborhood that a re probably driving that.

[bschoolprof 6252]

On 4/6/2024 at 9:36 AM, CooterBrown said:

I’ve heard from a reliable source that in the next major bond package (probably 10 years away) there’s a plan for McCallum to be rebuilt into a 4 story high school. They’d build the majority of it on the baseball/softball fields so the school can stay open during construction. When complete, new ball fields and the remainder of the new campus would be built on the old school location. The teams would practice and play at northwest park in the interim.

One of my sons played baseball against McCallum on their field recently. One kid on his team hit a kids'/parents' windshield on the exit drive as school was letting out.  oops.  Part of the left field wall is a school building with bars on the windows to protect against fly balls, but it looks like a prison.  They don't make em like that anymore. I'll be sad to see it go.  

ps. it's a shithole.  

[Grimas 669]

Always protest if you can make a case for lower numbers. I had a service once who said “ yes,  your assessment went up 20% but since you have homestead exemption of 10%, we won’t file for you…”. Fired her since that is then agreeing that the value did indeed go up 20% and my 10% increase is in the books for next year (plus the additional increases…) There are some services I got from Surly that will get you a comp report with their values for around 100$/year that you submit as an affidavit and don’t have to appear at the hearing… (you do have to go to tax office to submit the documentation…) I’ve had my values dropped every year from the original assessment by the CAD after protest…

[Constant 6723]

Ellis County has yet to release its appraisals, which is giving me extra time to find the best anal lube available.

[Samson's Wig 3191]

4 hours ago, Grimas said:

Always protest if you can make a case for lower numbers. I had a service once who said “ yes,  your assessment went up 20% but since you have homestead exemption of 10%, we won’t file for you…”. Fired her since that is then agreeing that the value did indeed go up 20% and my 10% increase is in the books for next year (plus the additional increases…) There are some services I got from Surly that will get you a comp report with their values for around 100$/year that you submit as an affidavit and don’t have to appear at the hearing… (you do have to go to tax office to submit the documentation…) I’ve had my values dropped every year from the original assessment by the CAD after protest…

A DM with details on those services would be greatly appreciated.

[Grimas 669]

Mistake post…

Edited April 8 by Grimas