🗺 Every page — the whole flow

The votes

Open questions Elections — when, where, how Voter turnout Priorities board What came of it Get involved

The budget

▶ Take the 2-minute tour The money trail Your tax bill, explained Cities & towns Grants — money we could go get Who gets paid What the auditors reported The receipt — arithmetic checked The documents How every number is sourced Questions people ask — answered from the data The plain-words tour

Public needs

Our water Jails & prisons — from holding to building Who’s watching — cameras, plate readers, the rules Who to call — county and state offices Find help

Dead ends & open questions

The docket The calendar How complete is this county?

Research for a better county

What if we saved?Tax lab — change the taxes Commonwealth — our own money Receipts by rails Food sovereignty Grow-ops The food flywheel The two pots Feeding the county The growing frontier The grower’s almanac The $400K blueprint The research shelf The precedents

The wider network

All counties Kindred work Where we sit in the field

How to trust this

Where we stand What we will never do How this is secured The traffic log Our story Report a problem

Smith County, Texas · your tax bill

Your tax bill, explained

A homestead in the City of Tyler, Tyler ISD and the Tyler Junior College district. Enter your own assessed value to see where every dollar of your property tax goes — and how it compares with each government’s “no-raise” rate. Updated 2026-10-06.

$3,743 a year — about $312 a month

On an assessed value of $300,000, as a homestead. An estimate from published rates — your own tax notice is the final word.

Of every $100 you pay

Tyler ISD$35.70 · $1,336 a year

Smith County$29.98 · $1,122 a year

City of Tyler$17.46 · $654 a year

Tyler Junior College$16.86 · $631 a year

Where it ends up — every government’s share, by what it pays for

Running the schools$27.37 · $1,024

County services$23.95 · $896

Paying off bonds (debt)$18.23 · $682

City services$17.46 · $654

Community college$12.99 · $486

Each unit’s rate is split into its maintenance-and-operations (M&O) part and its interest-and-sinking (I&S) part — the I&S part pays debt.

The “no-new-revenue” rate — Texas’s no-raise rate

Texas’s version of the “no-raise” rate is the no-new-revenue rate: the rate that would bring each taxing unit the same tax as last year from the same properties. Texas law makes each unit publish it; going above the higher voter-approval rate generally needs an election.

At these rates you pay $174.36 more a year than you would at every government’s no-raise rate.

Tyler Junior College $0.2103 per $100 vs. no-raise $0.1842 per $100	+$78.45
Smith County $0.3741 per $100 vs. no-raise $0.3576 per $100	+$49.34
City of Tyler $0.2421 per $100 vs. no-raise $0.2330 per $100	+$24.56
Tyler ISD $0.8350 per $100 vs. no-raise $0.8213 per $100	+$22.00

Texas taxing units adopt rates each August and September after public hearings; school districts and colleges set their own. Districts without a published no-raise rate here aren’t in the comparison. Meetings are on the calendar.

Each government, line by line

Tyler ISD — $1,336 a year

$0.8350 per $100 on $160,000 of taxable value · adopted Aug 2026 · Tyler ISD notice, M&O 0.6403 + I&S 0.1947

Tyler ISD — operations (M&O)$1,024

Tyler ISD — debt (I&S)$312

Smith County — $1,122 a year

$0.3741 per $100 on $300,000 of taxable value · 2026 rate · Smith County 2026 rate worksheet (Form 50-856)

Smith County — operations (M&O)$896

Smith County — debt (I&S)$226

City of Tyler — $654 a year

$0.2421 per $100 on $270,000 of taxable value · 2026 rate · City of Tyler 2026 rate worksheet

City of Tyler — operations (M&O)$654

Tyler Junior College — $631 a year

$0.2103 per $100 on $300,000 of taxable value · 2026 rate · TJC 2026 rate worksheet

Tyler Junior College — operations (M&O)$486

Tyler Junior College — debt (I&S)$145

What this doesn’t show — the honest limits

Fees and assessments on the same bill — stormwater, trash, street lights and others — aren’t property taxes and aren’t included.
Senior, veteran, widow and disability exemptions aren’t modeled.
Homestead exemptions shown are the general ones; over-65, disabled and veteran exemptions and school tax ceilings aren’t modeled.
Spreading a government’s tax across its whole budget is a fair picture, not a receipt: most budgets also run on other money (sales tax, state aid, fees).

Related: Tax lab — change the rates · The money trail · What if we saved?. This page computes and cites; it doesn’t say what any rate should be. Spot an error? Report it.