Senate Appropriations advances yield bill that nearly buys down property tax rates and expands renter credit for one year

The Senate Appropriations Committee advanced H949 on April 23, adopting a finance amendment that would nearly fully buy down a planned transfer to the education fund and temporarily expand the renter credit.

Legislative counsel John Gray told the committee the amendment reduces the transfer from the general fund to $100.9 million (down from $104.9 million in earlier drafts) and uses the money to lower property tax yields. Gray provided the revised yield figures: a property yield of 9,395, an income yield of 12,942 and a non‑homestead rate of 1.648. He described technical fixes in the bill intended to keep the statewide adjustment "mathematically neutral," including a statutory correction to how the property tax credit interacts with the statewide adjustment so the adjustment does not change tax liability.

Why it matters: committee members emphasized…