“Owning a home gives you some equity you don’t have if you rent, but it comes with a whole wagon load of issues like property taxes, homeowners insurance, and just the cost of real estate,” O’Brien said. “People are very frustrated.”

Texas homeowners have long paid some of the highest property taxes in the country. And with housing prices on the rise, those costs just keep going up.

“We can reduce the school property taxes while fully funding schools by using the budget surplus of $27 billion to pay for it,” Abbott wrote in a candidate questionnaire to the Star-Telegram ahead of the November election.

Harris County’s lengthy political battle over its annual budget came to an end Tuesday, with the three-Democrat majority on Commissioners Court forced to adopt a lower-than-planned tax rate.

Local governments in Texas have spent the summer preparing their budgets for next year, wrestling with inflation and a law that prohibits them from raising property tax revenues beyond 3.5% without voter approval.