Two different local governments made news on your tax bill this month, and if you live in the right part of Richardson, both of them apply to you at once.
Richardson: No Rate Increase, But Not No Increase
Richardson City Council is set to vote September 21 on a $432 million budget, the largest in city history, that holds the property tax rate flat at $0.54218 per $100 of assessed value. That rate hasn’t moved since fiscal year 2024-25.
But a flat rate doesn’t mean a flat bill. The average Richardson homestead’s taxable value rose 3.16% this year, from $411,065 to $424,062, so the city’s portion of a typical tax bill is still projected to rise about $70 annually even without a rate change.
That’s not the whole picture, either. The same budget includes a new water and wastewater rate structure: a 4% water rate increase and a 12% sewer rate increase, along with a new meter equivalency plan that adjusts monthly base charges by meter size. City Manager Don Magner says the increases are driven by rising wholesale water costs from the North Texas Municipal Water District and the need for infrastructure investment.
Add it all together, taxes plus utilities, and the city’s own figures show the estimated annual cost for a typical Richardson household rising from $4,422 to $4,652, an increase of $230, or 5.2%. The new utility rates take effect October 1 and first appear on November bills.
Collin County: The First Rate Increase Since 1993
One county over, Collin County commissioners voted 4-1 this week to raise the county’s property tax rate for the first time in 33 years. County Judge Chris Hill cast the only no vote. The new rate, about $0.151 per $100 of assessed value, is up from $0.149, and takes effect October 1 with the start of the county’s 2027 fiscal year.
For a median-value home with a homestead exemption, the county’s own budget figures show the county portion of a tax bill rising from $682.10 to $744.98, an increase of about $63. Part of that comes from the rate change itself, and part comes from the median home value used in the county’s budget rising from $480,773 to $517,911.
Commissioners pointed to the county’s rapid population growth and said departments are already running lean. Hill had proposed a 2.67% department-wide budget cut and skipping employee raises to avoid the increase entirely, but that motion failed. The new rate is expected to generate about $16.3 million in additional county revenue. A Texas Public Policy Foundation study cited during the budget discussion found that Collin County government spending had actually grown more slowly than population and inflation combined between 2015 and 2025, part of the argument commissioners made for why an increase was overdue rather than reckless.
Why This Actually Matters Together
Here’s the detail that ties these two stories together: Richardson isn’t entirely in one county. The southern two-thirds of the city sits in Dallas County and Richardson ISD, while the northern third falls in Collin County and Plano ISD. If your home is in that northern slice, you’re not choosing between these two stories, you’re living both of them at once: a city budget with a flat rate but rising utility and homestead costs, stacked on top of a county tax rate that just moved for the first time in three decades.
Bottom Line
Between rising home values, new utility rate structures, and a county rate resetting after 33 years, the total cost of owning in this area is moving in a lot of ways at once, and depending on exactly where your home sits, some of those moves stack.
Source: City of Richardson, Community Impact, KERA News, Dallas Express, September 2026
