Lavaca Tax ProtestTaxpayer information · 2026

Supporting documentation

See the numbers
for yourself.

Read the County’s worksheets alongside our calculation. The documents and explanation below show where the numbers come from.

What changes in our calculation?

Our calculation removes the full $180,811,350 mineral amount from new-property value. That assumes none of it qualifies as new property. The workbook shows how the rates change under that assumption; it cannot establish whether the assumption is legally correct.

All tax rates are dollars per $100 of taxable value. County and Farm-to-Market/Flood-Control (FMR) components are combined where indicated.
MeasureCounty calculationOur calculation*
County new-property value$238,666,143$57,854,793
FMR new-property value$238,616,239$57,804,889
Disputed mineral valueIncluded in new property$180,811,350 excluded from new property
Combined no-new-revenue (NNR) rate$0.6041$0.5744
Combined voter-approval rate$0.6346$0.6035
Adopted rate, according to our timeline$0.6041$0.6041 (unchanged)
Adopted rate above calculated voter-approval rate?NoYes, by $0.0006 per $100 if the full adjustment is correct

*Assumes the full mineral amount should be removed from new-property value. To check the figures in the comparison workbook, see Summary cells B4:C7, County NNR B19:C20, FMR NNR B19:C20, and Voter Approval B24:C24. The adoption date and adopted rate come from the account behind our timeline. The County worksheets also show $0.6041 as the combined no-new-revenue (NNR) rate.

What do the records show?

The official worksheets show the County figures in the table, and the source packet records the $180,811,350 mineral addition. We believe that amount should not count as new property. A lawyer must review that position and its consequences. If the dispute goes to court, the court will decide what the law requires.

Why Line 24 matters

Why counting too much as new property raises the rate.

Line 24 removes qualifying new property from the existing-property tax base used to calculate the no-new-revenue (NNR) rate. This lets the County collect revenue from genuine new growth without that growth artificially lowering the NNR rate.

But including property that does not qualify removes too much from that tax base. Divide the same revenue by a smaller number, and the calculated rate goes up.

NNR rate =Adjusted prior-year tax levyCurrent taxable value after other adjustments
− qualifying new property (Line 24)× 100

Simplified formula. The worksheets apply the required adjustments separately to the County and FMR components.

With the disputed amount

County Line 24: $238,666,143

$17,161,666.35$3,498,348,269× 100

$0.4905 County NNR rate

With our proposed correction

County Line 24: $57,854,793

$17,161,666.35$3,679,159,619× 100

$0.4664 County NNR rate

The denominator grows by $180,811,350. The mineral value stays on the taxable roll. We remove it only from the new-property deduction; this is not a tax exemption.

Add the FMR component: the published $0.4905 + $0.1136 = $0.6041 becomes $0.4664 + $0.1080 = $0.5744 under our proposed correction.

The revenue shown above is rounded to cents for display. The workbook uses the underlying value and cuts rate calculations off after four decimal places, rather than rounding up. All rates are per $100 of taxable value.

What about 2023–2025?

According to our review, the County did not make this mineral-value addition to new property in 2023, 2024, or 2025. Doing so in 2026 puts upward pressure on the NNR rate. The legal question is whether the 2026 property qualifies—not simply whether the County handled it differently before.

Compare the County’s published 2023, 2024, and 2025 worksheets with the 2026 source packet below. The worksheets show totals; those totals alone do not establish whether each mineral account qualifies.

Would last year’s rate apply?

Texas Tax Code §26.05(c) sets a default rate when a taxing unit fails to adopt a rate before the statutory deadline: the lower of the current year’s NNR rate or the prior year’s adopted rate.

The 2026 worksheets list the prior County and FMR rates as $0.4464 and $0.1033, totaling $0.5497. That is lower than our recalculated $0.5744. If §26.05(c) applies, the lower figure would be last year’s rate. Whether that provision applies following a challenge to the September 28 adoption is a legal question for counsel and, if contested, the court. A corrected calculation alone does not establish that result.

County tax-rate documents
Source documentation
Our recalculation

How we recalculated the rates

We subtract $180,811,350 from line 24 in each worksheet. The mineral value is already in the current-year taxable roll, so we do not add it again on line 22. A smaller new-property deduction leaves a larger adjusted taxable value in the rate calculation.

The workbook recalculates the County and FMR components, cutting off rate steps after four decimal places rather than rounding up. The $0.0021 unused increment rate stays the same. The results are:

  • No-new-revenue (NNR): $0.4664 County + $0.1080 FMR = $0.5744.
  • Voter approval: $0.4883 County + $0.1131 FMR + $0.0021 unused increment = $0.6035.

These figures depend on removing the full mineral amount and leaving the workbook’s other inputs unchanged. They do not tell you what your individual tax bill should be or what a court will decide.

Texas law and Comptroller information