O'Connell's Property Tax Shell Game

From The Pamphleteer, originally published July 24, 2026 - Mayor Freddie O'Connell probably breathed a sigh of relief after Acme Feed & Seed became the poster child for the city's property tax debacle. Tom Morales and his downhome honky tonk may be beloved by the locals, but his bill being the highlight of how the reappraisal cycle affected tax bills in Nashville distracted from O'Connell's deft maneuver to smuggle in a tax hike.

An outlier, Acme's appraised value jumped 423 percent from the previous year, resulting in a property tax bill that nearly quintupled. Acme's outsized bill, however, is not representative of most residential properties and has provided some cover for O'Connell's proclamation that he instituted the lowest property tax rate in decades, the lowest rate among the largest cities in Tennessee, and one of the lowest in the country.

The mayor deflected blame for bill increases onto the rise in home values across the city, impugning the assessor’s office. "It's complicated talking about appraisals, equalization, and the impact on tax, especially because two things are true at once," O'Connell said of his budget proposal last year.

“The median home in Davidson County is now 45 percent more valuable than it was when last appraised, and that means when we set the new tax rate, many of us will have increased costs, even as we're setting the lowest overall property tax rate in Nashville since 1972," he added.

But this isn't all as complicated as O'Connell makes it out to be. A more truthful retelling looks something like this: the Tennessee Comptroller set the lowest property tax rate in Nashville's history, and O'Connell raised it to fund the largest budget in Metro's history. (read more)

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