The Senate Committee on Economic Development heard Senator Flores’ version of the HOT tax, SB 1553, bill last Monday (4/7/25). They conspicuously held the hearing on the same day the Kerr County Republican Executive Committee meeting was held, where they know certain precinct chairs oppose the HOT tax and wished to call for a vote on it by the county Republican Party that same evening, making journeying to the capitol to testify near impossible. Then, during the county CEC meeting, the HOT tax wasn’t allowed to be brought up for discussion anyway.
What do we do now?
ACTION ITEM #1
Take action now!
Contact members of the Senate committee & tell them to vote ’No’ on the HOT tax. Stopping bills in committee is far easier than stopping it on the floor. Reference other talking points below…
Chair: Senator Phil King
Senator Kevin Sparks
Senator Charles Schwertner
Senator Carol Alvarado
Senator Nathan Johnson
Call each office after you send an email. Calls are 100% more effective than a passive email! The office numbers will show once you submit the email from the button above. You can also just call the Capitol switchboard and ask for the office:
Ask them to oppose SB 1553. No to NEW taxes!
“The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.”
– Ronald Reagan
ACTION ITEM #2
Virdell HOT tax bill up Monday
HOT tax bill up for a hearing Monday, April 14 at 10 AM in Ways & Means Committee.
STEP ONE: Submit online opposition ON THE OFFICIAL record in the House Committee (do this by Monday at 10 AM):
Contact members of the House committee & tell them to vote ’No’ on the HOT tax. Reference other talking points below…
Rep. Morgan Meyer
Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer
Rep. Diego Bernal
Rep. Angie Chen Button
Rep. Giovanni Capriglione
Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins
Rep. Hillary Gail Hickland
Rep. Sergio Muñoz, Jr.
Rep. Candy Noble
Rep. Vincent M. Perez
Rep. Ellen Troxclair
Rep. Chris Turner
Rep. Cody Vasut
Call each office after you send an email. Calls are 100% more effective than a passive email! The office numbers will show once you submit the email from the button above. You can also just call the Capitol switchboard and ask for the office:
Ask them to oppose HB 3178. No to NEW taxes!
Possible talking points:
We oppose SB1553 & HB3178 HOT tax bills, by Senator Pete Flores and Rep. Wes Virdell. I do not support the implementation of any new tax. Doing so sets a precedent for imposing new taxes whenever there’s a funding shortfall. I am so frustrated with Republicans that act against our core principles. The Kerr County Commissioners want this new tax to bail them out of the county’s spending problem. They claim this HOT tax is needed to pay for maintenance and upgrades to the Hill Country Youth Event Center.
We feel this is a bailout of our local government’s prior bad decision-making, like voting to use Biden’s ARPA funds (a one-time source of revenue) to pay for recurring expenses like three consecutive pay raises for the commissioners & all county employees. The majority voted for this with no way to pay for it moving forward after those funds were consumed. Also, Judge Rob Kelly has budgeted $300,000 for outside legal counsel when the county already has a county attorney on the pay roll. Just by eliminating this budget item for the ‘outside counsel’ expense, the county would nearly gain the amount projected to be collected through the HOT tax – $350,000/yr. HOT is a targeted tax on mom and pop businesses, since there’s only ONE hotel in the county.
The county commissioners are selling it on the premise ‘other people pay it’ (out of towners), not Kerr County residents. But the Residents who operate short term rentals will see a hit to their occupancy rates (as it will more than double the state HOT tax customers already pay), and residents who operate such short term rentals will have to become the county’s tax collector and spend their time and money remitting it to the county each month. That is a COST! Bailing out Kerr County with new tax authority will take attention away from the mismanagement of the Youth Event Center.
According to the management company that runs the facility, it’s running a $400,000 deficit annually! Obviously that is unsustainable. They tried to blame it on all the non-profits that use it for free, like 4-H, the stock show, and the political parties for each election. On the contrary, 4-H is regularly told they cannot use it if it’s rented out. 4-H is typically bumped from the space they’ve reserved in order to make way for paying customers. So that is not the reason for the deficit. Commissioner Rich Paces even stated in his own presentation that the most critical repairs have already been paid for and the proposed improvements are ‘nice to have but not critical.’ Why would we levy a new tax for ‘nice to have’ upgrades?
Gov. Abbott and Lt Gov Patrick are so tired of local government overspending erasing their property tax relief efforts at the state level that they’re advocating a 2/3 vote of the people in order to increase property tax. Local government spending is a massive problem across Texas, and it’s certainly not unique to Kerr County.
New Republican voters that came in to vote for TRUMP last November, did so in hopes of getting economic RELIEF. Republicans need to demonstrate that they differ from the tax and spend Democrats! Increasing taxes hurts the Republican brand. Travelers notice these taxes and what they tack onto their total bill to travel and will not come or go where these taxes aren’t as high. They have a choice and they’ll vote with their feet!