In 2012, Attorney General Abbott was asked by Chairman Pickett to answer questions about:
- The Authority of a county to form a transportation reinvestment zone
- Whether the zone can collect an ad valorem tax increment
- Can the funds be pledged and assigned to secure bonds to pay the cost of a transportation project ?
The Attorney General Opinion GA-0981:
- Transportation Code Chapter 222 lays out Transportation Reinvestment Zone parameters
- Since we’re talking about Ad Valorem Increment Bonds we also have to look at AG Opinion GA-0953
- 0953 tells us that we need to look at Texas Constitution Article 8, Section 1-g(b) that limits ad valorem increment bonds to cities and towns but not counties and could threfore be subject to a constitutional challenge base don equal and uniform taxation.
- Voters rejected a 2011 Constitutional Amendment that would have expanded this language to counties.