After Bexar County officials blamed a $1.3 billion property value loss on a new exemption for military widows during a recent budget session meeting, appraisal district data showed the financial impact was actually $24.8 million.
In Tuesday’s Commissioners Court meeting, the county corrected the record.
“One of the things that I want to correct for the record, that I had presented to the court and to the public on August 18, was the new exemptions,” Budget and Finance Director Tanya Gaitan said. “A minor amount of that was $24.8 million, was for the surviving spouses of disabled vets. So I wanted to clarify that for the public, as well as the court to correct that.”
In a presentation to the court two weeks ago, the Budget and Finance Department attributed the loss in its upcoming budget to “the disabled veteran’s widows qualifying for their spouse’s exemption.” The county said this came from “new exemptions approved during the legislative session.”
There was a new exemption approved last legislative session for property tax breaks for the widows of disabled veterans, Proposition 7, known as the 11.136 Qualifying Veteran Surviving Spouse (QVSS) exemption.
However, data from the Bexar County Appraisal District provided to the San Antonio Report showed this exemption accounted for a $24.8 million property value loss.
A story in the San Antonio Report on Aug. 27 reporting on the county’s presentation drew the attention of San Antonio military widows, including Marisol Deck, whose husband died while on active duty in 2021, after serving in the military for 22 years.
“Veterans’ widows did not create Bexar County’s budget problems, and we should not be portrayed as a financial burden for receiving protections tied to our spouses’ service and sacrifice,” she said in a Facebook comment.
“These exemptions are not handouts. They recognize what military families have already paid through deployments, disabilities, caregiving, lost opportunities — and, for some of us, the devastating loss of our spouse. My husband served this country, and my children and I live with that sacrifice every single day.”
Several San Antonio veteran organizations, including Circle of Arms and Lone Star Veteranos for Democracy, called on the county to publicly correct the record.
The county did just that on Tuesday.
The budget presentation now attributes $24.8 million to the new exemption for surviving spouses, where it before it had attributed $1.3 billion.
There was an exemption that did see a $1.3 billion change, however that exemption was neither new nor specifically for widows.
That was the Disabled Veteran Homestead exemption, it has been in effect since 2009 and it is for disabled veterans. It also saw a greater increase from 2024 to 2025. Over that fiscal year, the Disabled Veteran Homestead exemption increased by more than $4 billion. The year prior that category saw a $2 billion change.
The San Antonio Report’s military and veterans coverage is supported by Report for America.
