Grayson County holds its tax rate flat as its budget draws $3.5 million more

By GvilleTX Newsroom

Grayson County will raise about $3.5 million more from property taxes in the coming year without changing its tax rate, under the budget Commissioners Court adopted Aug. 25, 2026, for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, 2027. The county rate holds at $0.305100 per $100 of taxable value. For an owner east of the Cooke County line whose taxable value and exemptions are unchanged, the flat rate holds the county portion of the bill steady; higher taxable value raises it.

Most of the added money comes from property that was not on the roll a year ago. The adopted budget puts the increase at 5.26 percent over the prior year's budget and credits about $2.8 million of it to new property. The rate sits below the county's no-new-revenue rate and well below its voter-approval rate; inside the unchanged total, the maintenance-and-operations share slips and debt service picks up the difference.

| Grayson County, FY2027 adopted | Figure |

|---|---:|

| Total county rate | $0.305100 per $100 |

| Maintenance and operations | $0.285957 (from $0.286903) |

| Debt service | $0.019143 (from $0.018197) |

| No-new-revenue rate | $0.322789 |

| Voter-approval rate | $0.408938 |

| Added property-tax revenue | $3,491,908 (5.26%) |

| Of that, from new property | $2,788,489 |

| Estimated total county levy | $71,609,711 |

The Texas Comptroller's office describes the no-new-revenue rate as the one that would produce the same taxes on the same properties taxed in both years, and says the 86th Legislature rewrote the voter-approval calculation to limit property-tax growth statewide.

Growth explains much of the new roll. The Census Bureau estimates Grayson County grew 13.3 percent since 2020, to 153,613 residents last July. Grayson Central Appraisal District, which handles appraisal and exemption work for 36 jurisdictions, says it expects to maintain about 113,500 accounts across roughly 979 square miles in the 2027-28 reappraisal cycle. Each taxing unit sets its own rate, the district says, and appraisal serves to spread the yearly burden.

Against the recent record, this year's increase is mild. Adopted county budgets raised property-tax revenue about 17 percent for 2024 and roughly 20 percent for 2025, then under 2 percent for 2026. The adopted rate has come down over the decade, from about 46 cents in 2018, and has held where it is since 2023.

Cooke County's rate ran higher than Grayson's in the Comptroller's 2025 county file, and Fannin's higher still, while Denton and Collin sat well below both. Cooke's proposed fiscal 2027 budget would raise property taxes 14.84 percent, about $2.3 million.

The county line is a small piece of most bills. Sherman lists a combined 2025 stack of about $2.20 per $100, with the school district taking the largest share and the county under a sixth of the total. Across its budgeted funds, Grayson plans to spend roughly $157 million against about $135 million in revenue and to close the gap with some $22 million from fund balance.

Texas levies no state property tax, the Comptroller's office says, and local taxing units set the rates that pay for schools, roads, law enforcement and fire protection. Grayson County expects to collect 97.5 percent of its fiscal 2027 levy in the current tax year and estimates about $1.8 million will be delinquent on Oct. 1, 2027.