Sherman's Semiconductor Boom Won't Lower Your Tax Bill. Here's Why It Might Raise It.

Texas Instruments is building a four-building, $30 billion wafer campus in north Sherman that will eventually employ 3,000 people. A few miles away, GlobiTech is expanding its existing 143-acre site at US-75 and FM 1417 with another phase of its silicon wafer operation, targeting 2029 for production and another 1,500 jobs on top of what's already there. Those are the numbers that make headlines, and they're real.

Here's the number that doesn't make headlines: the Notice of Appraised Value that lands in a Sherman homeowner's mailbox every spring, usually around April 15, often shows an increase even on a house that hasn't been touched since the roof was last redone. The two facts aren't contradictory. They're connected, and the connection is the thing most coverage of Sherman's boom skips.

What the incentive packages actually bought

Landing a $30 billion manufacturing campus and a $5 billion wafer plant took more than good press releases. Sherman ISD, the City of Sherman, Grayson County, and Grayson College each negotiated tax breaks to win the projects, and the combined value of those breaks runs close to $3 billion.

For Texas Instruments, the breakdown of subsidies running from 2025 through 2060 looks like this:

The mechanics differ by entity. The city, county, and college structured their deals as straight abatements: 85 percent off for the first 10 years, followed by a 75 percent rebate for the next 20. Sherman ISD couldn't offer a direct abatement under state law, so it used a Chapter 313 school value limitation instead, capping the taxable value of each GlobiTech construction phase at $80 million even though each phase represents an estimated $221 million in real investment. GlobiTech's own math puts its annual savings from these agreements at roughly $13 million a year.

That gap between what a fab is actually worth and what it's taxed on is the first half of the mechanism. The industrial property generating the most economic activity in Grayson County is, for tax purposes, valued at a fraction of that activity for a decade or more at a stretch.

The recapture twist nobody explained well

Even with all of that value shielded, Sherman ISD crossed a threshold in the 2024-2025 school year that it hadn't crossed before: it became a "recapture" district, meaning state law now requires it to send money back to Austin to support less property-wealthy districts elsewhere in Texas.

Grayson Central Appraisal District Deputy Chief Appraiser Ronald Rowe explained why to KTEN in October 2024, pointing to new construction and industrial growth on the south side of town.

"That counted for about $2.1 billion of growth for the ISD, so that's going to have a big impact on the amount of tax revenue that they can collect."

The recapture bill itself was modest, estimated at under $200,000, or roughly 0.2 percent of the district's total revenue for that year. Rowe also noted that some of the current tax base tied to TI and GlobalWafers "is going to go away in future years once those are abated," a reminder that the numbers driving today's headlines will keep shifting as each phase moves through its own abatement schedule.

Despite the recapture designation, Sherman ISD's combined tax rate for the 2024-2025 school year sat at $1.2342 per $100 of value, its lowest in more than two decades. Superintendent Dr. Thomas O'Neal told KTEN in December 2024 that GlobiTech had agreed to move up its negotiated payment schedule, with a first payment estimated at $1.38 million expected by January 31, 2026. Combined with other industry growth, O'Neal said that acceleration would let the district fund its bond projects "while maintaining the current tax rate."

Put together, the boom is large enough to trigger a state recapture obligation and small enough, once the abatements are netted out, that it barely moves the needle on the actual bill. A homeowner reading the $30 billion headline has no way to know that.

Where your number actually comes from

If the fabs themselves are mostly shielded from the tax rolls, where does the pressure on an individual homeowner's appraisal come from? From the housing market the boom created around it.

KXII reported in April 2025 that Sherman's housing market had roughly 3,000 vacant lots ready for new homes, a direct response to the incoming workforce. Grayson Central Appraisal District has to use market comparables to set values, and the comparables available near the TI and GlobiTech corridor increasingly come from those new subdivisions built for six-figure engineering and technician salaries, not from the resale market an older ranch-style home actually competes in.

Grayson CAD's own guidance acknowledges the tension directly: new construction sales count as comparables, and if nearby new homes are selling at a premium, the district may use those sales to justify higher values on existing homes nearby, even when the two properties have little in common beyond a shared zip code. An owner in that position has a real case, but it rests on demonstrating condition and location differences rather than assuming the appraisal will correct itself.

What to actually do about it

The protest window in Grayson County runs to May 15 or 30 days after the Notice of Appraised Value is mailed, whichever comes later. That deadline isn't a formality. Miss it and the value stands for the year regardless of how strong the underlying case is.

Grayson Central Appraisal District Chief Appraiser Shawn Coker told KXII in April 2025 that the district was fielding somewhere between 14,000 and 15,000 protests, a volume he said is heavily driven by paid tax agents rather than homeowners filing on their own. That's worth sitting with for a moment. If tax agents are filing thousands of protests a year, the process is navigable without one, and Coker's own advice to homeowners backs that up directly: "No one's going to know anything better about their property than a property owner."

Strong evidence for a protest in this market tends to fall into a short list:

• Comparable sales from homes that actually resemble yours, not new-construction premiums from a subdivision a half mile away
• Photographs documenting condition issues, deferred maintenance, or anything that would lower a buyer's offer
• Errors in the county's own property record, such as incorrect square footage or room counts

Coker's other piece of advice was simpler still: address visible maintenance issues, like chipped paint or a leaking roofline, before the appraisal cycle rather than after, since those are the kinds of condition differences that separate an older resale from the new construction it's being compared against.

For anyone closing on a resale near the TI or GlobiTech corridor rather than protesting an existing bill, the same logic applies before the contract is signed. Pull the current and prior year's Notice of Appraised Value from Grayson Central Appraisal District's public search tool, ask whether the seller protested last year and what evidence they used, and go in expecting that comparable sales in the immediate area will likely skew toward new-construction pricing for as long as those 3,000-plus lots continue filling in.

Two questions that come up often

Does an abatement mean Texas Instruments and GlobiTech pay no property tax at all? No. The city, county, and college agreements reduce the bill through an 85 percent abatement for 10 years followed by a 75 percent rebate for the next 20, and Sherman ISD's Chapter 313 agreement caps the taxable value of each construction phase rather than exempting it. Both companies still pay something on the capped or discounted value every year the agreements are active.

If the boom is this large, why didn't Sherman ISD's tax rate drop further? Because so much of the new taxable value sits inside abatement caps rather than on the open rolls, the growth that pushed the district into recapture status in 2024-2025 was large enough to trigger a state obligation but not large enough, after abatements, to fund a significant rate cut on its own. The district credited accelerated GlobiTech payments and broader industry growth with letting it hold its rate rather than raise it.

If you're weighing a home near the TI and GlobiTech corridor, whether it's a resale that hasn't been reappraised in years or new construction competing for the same buyers, the numbers on a listing sheet and the numbers on a Notice of Appraised Value aren't always telling the same story. Texas Life Real Estate can walk through recent comps with you before you write an offer or file a protest. Request Your Free Home Valuation.