Murphy homeowners will pay $165.34 more in city property taxes next year after the City Council voted 5-2 on Tuesday, Sept. 15, to adopt the voter-approval tax rate for Fiscal Year 2027, the Murphy Monitor reported.

The new rate of $0.361832 per $100 of taxable appraised value replaces the FY2026 rate of $0.3575. On a median-value Murphy home, now appraised at $592,198 according to a Collin County taxpayer impact statement, the annual city tax bill rises to $2,142.76.

Before the final vote, Mayor Pro Tem W. Scott Smith moved to adopt the lower no-new-revenue rate instead.

That motion failed.

The voter-approval rate is roughly $0.004 higher than the no-new-revenue rate, a 1.2% increase, according to an earlier Murphy Monitor report. Eight residents weighed in against the proposals during public hearings that preceded the votes. Five spoke against the proposed budget and three opposed the tax rate.

The council had unanimously set the stage for the Sept. 15 vote at its Aug. 18 meeting, when all seven members approved a resolution establishing $0.361832 as the maximum allowable rate and scheduling the public hearing. Council Member Jenné Butler made that motion.

At that same Aug. 18 session, Mayor Scott Bradley compared Murphy's tax burden to neighboring cities. "Murphy is a good deal," Bradley said, as reported by the Murphy Monitor on Aug. 27. Bradley, working on his 20th city budget, also told fellow council members that accountability rests with them. "If we're not meeting the needs of the residents, or we're providing services that the residents don't need, then that comes back to you," he said at the Aug. 18 meeting.

The city has not yet published the Sept. 15 meeting minutes, so the names behind the two dissenting votes have not been confirmed. The seven-member council includes Bradley, Smith, Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Kenneth Oltmann and Council Members Elizabeth Abraham, Debbie Ison, Kevin Kelley and Butler.

As we reported Sept. 15, the council also held a hearing on the proposed $67 million budget at the same meeting. The adopted tax rate takes effect with the new fiscal year.