Attorney General Ken Paxton is continuing his scrutiny of municipal tax practices, announcing a new round of document requests as part of an investigation into more than 1,000 cities across Texas.
Paxton said the effort is aimed at ensuring cities are complying with Senate Bill 1851, a law passed last year that requires municipalities to complete and publicly post annual financial audits by a set deadline. Under the law, cities that fail to meet those audit and transparency requirements are prohibited from increasing property tax revenue beyond the previous year’s level.
According to the attorney general’s office, this latest action builds on earlier requests for records sent to cities as part of an initial compliance review. With a new fiscal year underway, Paxton said his office is again seeking financial documents and audit information to determine whether municipalities are meeting the law’s requirements before adopting tax increases.
Some of the largest cities included in the investigation are Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth, El Paso, and Corpus Christi, along with mid-sized and smaller municipalities such as Conroe, Sugar Land, Waco, and Tyler.
