Aledo's taxing units told the truth this year. The state's words made it hard to hear.

What the record shows

On Aug. 6, 2026, the council adopted the certified tax roll, $1,057,685,374 in taxable value, and set a proposed rate; on Aug. 20 it adopted the fiscal 2027 budget and a rate of $0.352415 per $100, down from $0.355349 in 2025 as the Comptroller reports it, on a roll that grew from $1.01 billion.

Aledo ISD adopted $1.1775 for 2026-2027, from $1.1942; the Comptroller's files show the district's rate falling every year since 2021's $1.3929 while its taxable value rose from $4.39 billion to $6.18 billion.

Parker County proposed $0.284719, which the county's notice identifies as its no-new-revenue rate, from $0.28507, with the vote set for Sept. 22; the county's taxable value rose from $18.5 billion in 2021 to $30.6 billion in 2025.

The no-new-revenue rate raises the same tax from the same properties as the prior year; new construction is added afterward, so a unit at that rate still collects more. The Ledger's explainer walks through the arithmetic, including the 2019 school board vote that adopted a ten-cent cut under a motion the state required to call a 4.04 percent increase.

Rates, values and levies by year, all three units · The no-new-revenue rate, explained · The Aug. 20, 2026 adoption · The tax calculator

Assessment

Aledo's three taxing units did this year's work by the book. The city put its certified roll on the table by number, held both hearings, adopted its rate with the words state law requires, and took the separate vote the law demands when a budget raises more property tax than the year before. The school district adopted a rate lower than last year's for the fifth year running. The county proposed the rate that raises the same revenue from the same properties. Nobody hid anything. And a resident who read all three notices would still not know what happened to their bill.

The reason is the language the state makes them use. The council's motion on Aug. 20 said the rate was being "increased" to $0.352415, a number lower than last year's; the school board in 2019 adopted a ten-cent cut under a motion it was required to call a 4.04 percent increase. The words mean something precise, revenue against a benchmark, but to the person paying the bill they mean the opposite of what the number says. Meanwhile the figure that moves most bills, the appraisal, is set by a fourth body whose name appears on none of these notices, and new construction lets every unit collect more at a rate it can honestly call no-new-revenue. The law was written to make units say when they raise revenue. It succeeds at that and fails at the thing residents want, which is to know what they will pay.

The fix is not another rate. It is one page, in plain words, published with every adoption: what the unit will collect on a typical home this year and what it collected last year, how much of the change comes from the rate and how much from the value, and what the new construction added. The city, the district and the county each have the numbers; the statement is an afternoon's work for a finance director and would do more for trust than any hearing no one attends.

If the units will not publish it, the Ledger will. Beginning with this year's adoptions, the Ledger will compute and publish the typical-home figure for each unit, this year against last, with the arithmetic shown, every August. We would rather link to theirs.

Right of reply: Aledo City Council; Aledo ISD Board of Trustees; Parker County Commissioners Court received this piece the morning it ran and have a standing offer of the same space to respond. Corrections to the record section run at the top and on the corrections page.