Council raised the rate to 79.8 cents. The commitment is that it does not move again.

In short

On August 18, 2026, Council voted 6–2 to raise the property tax rate from 75.96 cents to 79.8 cents per $100 — about $105 a year on the average-value home. This paper does two things, and is fair about both. First, the record: the increase raised $21.3 million of recurring revenue, while Council sat on $33.5 million of reserve headroom above its own policy floor and used none of it, $3.2 million of above-inflation operating growth it chose to fund, and $4.2 million a year captured in reinvestment zones nobody had re-examined. It also faced $33.3 million of pressure it did not choose — state-mandated exemptions, certified values coming in low, voter-approved debt, public safety contracts — and both halves of that story are true. Second, the commitment: no further increase through FY 2028. That is harder than it sounds, because both public safety contracts land in the same budget year, stacking roughly $32 million of pressure against a flat rate. At 4 percent appraisal growth with the tools in this plan at midpoint, 79.8 holds. Below 2 percent growth it does not hold without cutting services — and the paper says so rather than pretending otherwise.