Taxation panel advances bill allowing protest petitions to cap property-tax-driven revenue increases, creates ASTRA Fund

The House Committee on Taxation on March 5 advanced House Bill 2396, a measure that would let residents use a protest petition to limit an increase in property-tax revenue for local taxing jurisdictions, create the ASTRA Fund to redistribute some State General Fund transfers to qualifying cities and counties, and eliminate existing revenue-neutral rate requirements and the taxpayer-notification cost fund.

The bill matters because it alters how local governments can rely on property-tax revenue and adds a new state-administered mechanism for payments to jurisdictions that stay within specified limits. Reviser (staff) told the committee the bill “would authorize the use of a protest petition to limit funding of a taxing jurisdiction by property tax revenues above a certain amount” and described the ASTRA Fund and the elimination of statutory revenue-neutral requirements.

Debate centered on the petition threshold — how many voters must sign or be represented to force a budget halt — and several amendments that changed how the petition operates. Representative Hsu proposed raising the threshold to 20% of votes cast in the referenced election, arguing the measure “just kind of makes a little bit more sense” to avoid allowing a small number of signatures to immediately kill a budget. Representative Francis offered a substitute motion that replaced the bill’s original reference with “10% of the qualified voters of the votes cast for the president of The United States at the last general election.” Reviser confirmed the substitute’s wording would base the calculation on votes cast in the last…