Supreme Court of Texas

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No. 21-0358

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James Robert Jones and Allen Watson, 

Petitioners,

v.

Sylvester Turner, in His Official Capacity as 

Mayor of the City of Houston, et al., 

Respondents

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On Petition for Review from the

Court of Appeals for the Fourteenth District of Texas

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Argued February 22, 2022

JUSTICE LEHRMANN delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents issues of taxpayer standing and governmental 

immunity. Two Houston taxpayers sued the mayor and the city 

councilmembers for allegedly misallocating tax revenue in Fiscal 

Year 2020, in violation of the City Charter. They complain that the 

Charter requires a certain amount of tax revenue to be allocated to a 

fund used exclusively for drainage and street maintenance and that the 

city officials illegally directed a portion of that money to other city 
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services. The taxpayers claim that the officials acted ultra vires in 

spending the tax revenue at issue on anything other than the drainage 

fund. The officials filed a plea to the jurisdiction asserting governmental 

immunity, and the trial court denied the plea. The court of appeals held 

that the taxpayers lacked standing and dismissed the case without 

reaching the immunity issue. 

We hold that the taxpayers have standing to assert their claims

and sufficiently pleaded ultra vires acts. We therefore reverse the court 

of appeals’ judgment and remand to the trial court for further 

proceedings.

I. Background

In the November 2018 election, the City of Houston’s 

Proposition A passed by a 74% majority vote. The proposition amended 

the City Charter by adding Article IX, Section 22, which established the 

Dedicated Drainage and Street Renewal Fund. The Fund ended the 

City’s former practice of issuing bonds and incurring debts to fund 

drainage and street maintenance, replacing it with a pay-as-you-go 

method of funding. HOUSTON CITY CHARTER art. IX, § 22(a). That 

funding is allocated from several sources. Id. § 22(b). At issue in this 

case is the allocation from one of those sources, namely, the city’s 

ad valorem tax levy, which comes from property tax revenue. Id.

§ 22(b)(iii). 

Section 22 requires that, aside from a relatively small portion, the 

Fund “shall be used exclusively” for drainage and street costs. Id.

§ 22(b). Included in the amount that must be allocated to the Fund is

“[a]n amount equivalent to proceeds from $0.118 of the City’s ad valorem 
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tax levy” minus debt service on outstanding bonds or notes for drainage

and streets. Id. § 22(b)(iii). The standard method of designating the 

amount of the tax levy is in terms of an amount per $100 of the value of 

the property being taxed (e.g., in 2010, the tax rate was $0.63875 per 

$100 of valuation). Accordingly, the parties agree that Section 22’s 

reference to $0.118 means 11.8 cents per $100 of property value. The 

funding derived from the ad valorem tax levy is “included in those 

revenues limited by this Charter.” Id. § 22(d). 

In turn, tax revenues are limited by Article III, Section 1 of the 

Charter, the so-called “revenue cap.” Section 1(a) provides that, absent 

voter approval to the contrary, the City shall not “levy ad valorem taxes 

at combined rates expected to result in total ad valorem tax 

revenues . . . that exceed the lower of” two different “indexed” amounts. 

Id. art. III, § 1(a) (“In each subsequent fiscal year [after the fiscal year 

ending June 30, 2005], the allowable ad valorem tax revenues shall be 

the prior fiscal year’s indexed ad valorem tax revenues.”). The first is 

the “allowable ad valorem tax revenues increased by the rate of 

inflation . . . plus the rate of growth in the City’s population.” Id.

§ 1(a)(i). The second is the “amount of total ad valorem taxes, both 

current and delinquent, actually collected during the prior fiscal year, 

increased by 4.5% of that amount.” Id. § 1(a)(ii). If the voters approve 

“an increase in total ad valorem tax revenues” above Section 1(a)’s

limits, the total ad valorem revenues so approved “shall become the 

amount to be adjusted in (a)(i) and (a)(ii).” Id. § 1(a). The City Council 

is authorized under Section 1 to adopt procedures “as necessary to 

implement this section” and “shall have full authority to assess and 
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collect any and all revenues of the city without limitation, except as to 

ad valorem taxes and water and sewer rates.” Id. § 1.

For Fiscal Year 2020, City Council approved an allocation of 

approximately $47 million in ad valorem tax revenue to the Fund. 

Houston taxpayers James Robert Jones and Allen Watson (Taxpayers) 

sued the mayor and the city councilmembers (City Officials) in their 

official capacities.1 Taxpayers allege that, according to their 

calculations, the City Officials underfunded the Fund by almost $50 

million and in doing so violated the Charter and acted ultra vires. 

Taxpayers request declaratory, injunctive, and mandamus relief 

preventing the City Officials from reducing the amount contributed to 

the Fund to an amount less than that mandated by the Charter. 

Taxpayers also seek their attorney’s fees. 

Taxpayers’ original petition reflects their calculation of the 

amount they allege should have been allocated to the Fund, which they 

have maintained throughout the proceedings. They begin their 

calculation with the Fiscal Year 2020 total “assessed taxable property 

value” of $214 billion, a value they assert takes into account any 

exemptions and revenue caps. They then multiply that $214 billion by 

$0.118/$100, per Section 22’s allocation, arriving at $252,520,000. From 

that number they subtract the debt service amount, per 

1 The named defendants are Sylvester Turner, in his official capacity as 

Mayor of the City of Houston, and Dwight Boykins, Martha Castex-Tatum, 

Karla Cisneros, Ellen R. Cohen, Jack Christie, Jerry Davis, Amanda Edwards, 

Robert Gallegos, Mike Knox, Michael Kubosh, Mike Laster, Steve Le, Dave 

Martin, David Robinson, Brenda Stardig, and Greg Travis, in their official 

capacities as City Councilmembers of the City of Houston.
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Section 22(b)(iii). They thus arrive at $96,665,000, the amount they 

allege should have been allotted to the Fund for Fiscal Year 2020.2 In 

their brief in this Court, Taxpayers further present an alternative 

calculation by which they arrive at a similar number from a different 

starting point—the Fiscal Year 2020 total ad valorem tax proceeds of 

$1,215,687,000, which they again assert takes into account the revenue 

cap, property valuations, tax protests, and exemptions. They assert that 

this amount reflects the actual collections expected based on a $0.56792

tax levy, and that $0.118 of that $0.56792—i.e., .118/.56792—must go to 

the Fund. Thus, they calculate $1,215,687,000 x (.118/.56792) = 

$252,590,269.76. Subtracting the debt service from that amount, 

Taxpayers reach an allocation of $96,735,269.76 to the Fund from the 

ad valorem tax proceeds. 

The City Officials filed a plea to the jurisdiction asserting 

governmental immunity. They argued that Taxpayers were merely 

claiming the City Officials failed to implement the Charter’s provisions 

as Taxpayers would have liked, rather than demonstrating that the City 

Officials acted outside of their authority. At the hearing on the plea to 

the jurisdiction, the City Officials presented several exhibits, including 

2 Taxpayers’ petition states that the debt service amount is 

$161,226,060, but in this Court the parties appear to agree that the correct 

number is $155,885,000. Because of that discrepancy, the petition states that 

$91,293,940 should have been allotted to the Fund, but Taxpayers argue here 

that subtracting the correct debt service amount yields $96,665,000. To the 

extent corrections to the pleadings are necessary to address this discrepancy, 

they may be accomplished on remand. See Tex. Dep’t of Parks & Wildlife v. 

Miranda, 133 S.W.3d 217, 226–27 (Tex. 2004) (holding that plaintiffs have an

opportunity to amend their pleadings so long as they “do not affirmatively 

demonstrate incurable defects in jurisdiction”).
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budget sheets and other documents related to various city funds, “to 

demonstrate to the Court that this is not third grade math” but rather 

involves “very complicated” calculations that require the City Officials’ 

exercise of discretion. One of the documents indicates that the contested 

$47 million allocation to the Fund was calculated by subtracting the 

debt service amount from $202,988,000, described as the “$0.118 

equivalent of City’s Ad Valorem Tax Levy,” but the document provides 

no detail as to how the officials arrived at that number. The trial court 

denied the plea to the jurisdiction.

On appeal, the City Officials maintained their entitlement to 

immunity and argued for the first time that Taxpayers lacked standing 

to bring the suit. Addressing only the standing argument, the court of 

appeals reversed. 617 S.W.3d 894, 897 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 

2020). The court held that Taxpayers failed to satisfy their burden to 

show that they are seeking to enjoin the illegal expenditure of funds, a 

necessary component of taxpayer standing. In fact, the court concluded, 

Taxpayers had “not sought to enjoin the expenditure of any funds at all” 

but rather to enjoin alleged underfunding. Id. at 896. Because the court 

of appeals held that Taxpayers had not established taxpayer standing 

and had not otherwise shown a particularized injury, the court 

dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction without reaching the 

immunity issue. Id. at 896–97. We granted Taxpayers’ petition for 

review.

II. Taxpayer Standing

Generally, parties do not have standing to sue unless they can 

show, among other things, that they have “suffered a particularized 
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injury distinct from that suffered by the general public.” Bland Indep. 

Sch. Dist. v. Blue, 34 S.W.3d 547, 555–56 (Tex. 2000). However, Texas 

law recognizes a “long-established exception” for taxpayers, who may 

sue “to enjoin the illegal expenditure of public funds” without showing a 

particularized injury. Id. at 556. To have standing as a taxpayer to 

challenge government expenditures, a plaintiff must show two things: 

“(1) that the plaintiff is a taxpayer; and (2) that public funds are 

expended on . . . allegedly illegal activity.” Williams v. Lara, 52 S.W.3d 

171, 179 (Tex. 2001). It is undisputed that Taxpayers meet the first 

prong, so their standing as taxpayers hinges on the second 

requirement.3

Construing Taxpayers’ pleadings liberally in their favor, we hold 

that Taxpayers have pleaded sufficient facts for taxpayer standing. See 

City of El Paso v. Heinrich, 284 S.W.3d 366, 378 (Tex. 2009) (explaining 

that in determining “if the pleader has alleged facts that affirmatively 

demonstrate the court’s jurisdiction to hear the cause,” “we construe the 

pleadings liberally in favor of the plaintiffs and look to the pleaders’ 

intent”). Taxpayers pleaded that the City Officials allocated $47 million 

of the ad valorem tax levy to the Fund when, according to Taxpayers’ 

3 The City Officials oddly argue that Taxpayers failed to “raise[] or 

preserve[]” the standing issue. Leaving aside that the City Officials, not 

Taxpayers, are the parties complaining about standing, standing is a 

component of subject-matter jurisdiction that may be raised at any time. 

Garcia v. City of Willis, 593 S.W.3d 201, 206 (Tex. 2019) (noting that courts are 

“duty-bound to determine whether [standing] exists” even if the parties do not 

raise it). The City Officials also argue that because the funds for Fiscal 

Year 2020 have already been spent, the issue is moot. However, Taxpayers are 

seeking prospective relief for future allocation of funds.
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calculation, the officials were required to allocate almost $97 million. 

That is a measurable, and by no means de minimis, shortfall. See 

Andrade v. Venable, 372 S.W.3d 134, 138 (Tex. 2012) (holding that the 

illegal expenditure must be significant, not de minimis). And Taxpayers 

allege that the City is “actually spending” the money because the 

collected funds are being spent on city services that would not have 

received those funds had the City properly allocated them. Finally, 

Taxpayers allege that the misallocation is illegal because Article IX, 

Section 22 of the City Charter mandates that the Fund be spent 

“exclusively” on drainage and street maintenance, meaning the City 

Officials had no authority to allocate the money designated for the Fund

elsewhere and violated the Charter in allegedly doing so. 

The City Officials argue that no expenditures and no illegal 

activities have been alleged; rather, they maintain that the City merely 

allocated money on “related legal activity”—here, other lawful city 

services. See Venable, 372 S.W.3d at 138. We disagree. 

First, whether the issue is characterized as making expenditures 

on services other than drainage and street maintenance in violation of 

the City Charter or failing to expend as required by the City Charter is 

merely a matter of semantics. Either way, the City is collecting tax 

dollars that allegedly are not being spent in accordance with the City 

Charter’s express mandate. The rationale underlying taxpayer 

standing applies equally in either case: “protect[ing] the public from the 

illegal expenditure of public funds without hampering too severely the 

workings of the government.” Blue, 34 S.W.3d at 556. In any event, in 

this case, the allegation that the City is allocating too little to the Fund 
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necessarily carries with it an alleged expenditure elsewhere. It is 

undisputed that money not allocated to the Fund was allocated to and 

spent on other services that otherwise would not have received that 

money. 

Because Taxpayers allege that a considerable amount of taxpayer 

money is being spent in a manner that violates the City Charter, the 

City Officials’ argument that the funds are being spent on “related legal 

activity” is inapposite. See Venable, 372 S.W.3d at 138. Although the 

city services to which the disputed funds have been allocated are 

themselves lawful, the allegedly unlawful act was budgeting (and 

spending) any money that should have been allocated to the Fund on 

any service other than drainage and street maintenance because that 

act violates the City Charter. The City Officials’ reliance on Venable and 

Lara is therefore misplaced. 

We emphasize that we do not hold a taxpayer has standing to 

challenge every use (or nonuse) of taxpayer money of which he does not 

approve. But when the law requires that a certain amount of money be 

directed to a specific service, and the plaintiff alleges that it is being 

directed and spent elsewhere, the taxpayer has alleged an illegal 

expenditure sufficient to confer taxpayer standing.

The City Officials’ remaining standing arguments are similarly 

unconvincing. First, they imply that taxpayer standing is categorically 

unavailable when the plaintiff asserts an ultra vires claim. However, 

the City Officials cite nothing in support of this proposition beyond 

general standing principles, which encompass an express exception for 

taxpayer standing. They also argue that Taxpayers failed to identify a 
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measurable amount of funds expended on other specific services, and 

that because money is fungible they could not do so if they tried. But 

Taxpayers have identified a specific amount of funds—almost $50 

million—that they allege should have been allocated to the Fund and 

instead were spent elsewhere. Even if Taxpayers cannot specifically 

track every missing dollar, they can show that the tax revenue was 

acquired and quantify the amount allegedly missing from the Fund. The 

amount missing, if any, amounts to a measurable expenditure on other 

services even though each dollar is fungible with any other in the 

budget. The court of appeals therefore erred in dismissing the case on 

standing grounds. 

III. Governmental Immunity

Because the court of appeals disposed of the case on taxpayerstanding grounds, it did not address whether Taxpayers had sufficiently 

pleaded and presented evidence of an ultra vires claim to defeat the City 

Officials’ entitlement to governmental immunity. In the interest of 

judicial economy, we will address the issue in the first instance. See 

First Baptist Church of San Antonio v. Bexar Cnty. Appraisal Review 

Bd., 833 S.W.2d 108, 111 (Tex. 1992) (noting that this Court may, in the 

interest of judicial economy, either review or remand issues not 

considered in the court of appeals).

Governmental immunity generally bars suits for monetary 

damages against public officials, but governmental immunity does not 

bar prospective relief against government officers acting ultra vires, i.e., 

outside their legal authority. Heinrich, 284 S.W.3d at 368–69, 372. To 

demonstrate that government officers are acting ultra vires, a plaintiff 
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must show that the officers “acted without legal authority or failed to 

perform a purely ministerial act.” Id. at 372. Thus, an ultra vires claim 

may not be maintained if the officials’ acts are within their discretion; 

the plaintiff must show that the officers failed to perform a purely 

ministerial act or acted outside the scope of their allotted discretion. 

Houston Belt & Terminal Ry. Co. v. City of Houston, 487 S.W.3d 154, 

163 (Tex. 2016). And while an act within the officials’ discretion is 

protected by immunity even if it is erroneous, Hall v. McRaven, 508 

S.W.3d 232, 242–43 (Tex. 2017), officials generally have no discretion to 

misinterpret the law, Houston Belt, 487 S.W.3d at 163.

At the plea to the jurisdiction stage, governmental officials may 

challenge jurisdiction based solely on the pleadings or may challenge 

jurisdictional facts. Heinrich, 284 S.W.3d at 378. When the pleadings 

are challenged, we review whether the alleged facts, if true, 

affirmatively demonstrate jurisdiction; because we construe pleadings 

liberally in favor of the pleader, we will grant a plea to the jurisdiction 

without an opportunity to replead only if the pleadings affirmatively 

negate jurisdiction. Houston Belt, 487 S.W.3d at 160. When 

jurisdictional facts are challenged, we consider relevant evidence in the 

record and will grant the plea only if there is no question of fact as to 

the jurisdictional issue. Heinrich, 284 S.W.3d at 378. “This standard 

mirrors our review of summary judgments,” such that we take as true 

all evidence favorable to the nonmovants, and we indulge every 

reasonable inference and resolve any doubts in their favor. Id. 

The City Officials’ plea to the jurisdiction purported to challenge 

both Taxpayers’ pleadings and the existence of jurisdictional facts. 
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Though they did not attach any evidence to their plea, they did present 

exhibits at the hearing that are included in the reporter’s record, and 

Taxpayers did not object to those exhibits. Accordingly, we will address 

both the pleadings and the evidence of jurisdictional facts.

Taxpayers pleaded that the City Officials “have no discretion to 

calculate” the Fund allocation beyond the Charter’s “straightforward 

mathematical formula.” They allege that the $0.118 allocation under 

Section 22 is a fixed number, not a percentage, that must be used to fund 

drainage and street maintenance. Their claim is that the City Officials 

violated that mandate by allocating less than the full $0.118 amount to 

the Fund. The City Officials respond that the petition does not challenge 

their authority to decide how to apply municipal law. Instead, they 

characterize Taxpayers’ claim as nothing more than a complaint that 

the City Officials calculated the Fund allocation, pursuant to their 

necessary discretion, in a way that differs from Taxpayers’ preferred

method. We disagree. 

“Ultra vires claims depend on the scope of a state official’s 

authority,” and the City Charter defines the scope of the City Officials’ 

authority here. See Hall, 508 S.W.3d at 234. Section 22 says the Fund 

“shall be funded” by “an amount equivalent to proceeds from $0.118 of 

the City’s ad valorem tax levy,” and that the money allocated to the Fund 

“shall be used exclusively” for drainage and street costs. HOUSTON CITY 

CHARTER art. IX, § 22(b). The City Officials have no discretion but to 

allocate the funds as mandated: either they have properly allocated the 

funds, or they have not. 
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The City Officials argue that they have discretion in how they 

allocate the funds because the Article III, Section 1 revenue cap and the 

Article IX, Section 22 ad valorem-revenue allocation provisions are in 

tension and must be reconciled. They assert that Taxpayers did not take 

the revenue cap into account in their pleadings but that Taxpayers now 

admit the cap applies. Thus, the City Officials contend that Taxpayers 

concede the City Officials have discretion to incorporate the cap into the 

Fund allocation’s calculation. 

While Taxpayers and the City Officials agree that the revenue cap 

must be taken into consideration in calculating the Fund allocation, that 

is not the end of the story. Contrary to the City Officials’ contention, 

Taxpayers have maintained a consistent position on the proper 

calculation throughout the proceedings. They allege and argue not that 

the cap doesn’t apply, but that the City Officials are applying it 

incorrectly. As noted, Taxpayers explain how their calculation takes the 

revenue cap into consideration and reaches a number well above that 

presented by the City Officials. Specifically, they assert: the revenue 

cap places a ceiling on the total amount of ad valorem tax revenue that 

may be collected after taking into account protests and exemptions; the 

City sets the ad valorem tax rate based on that capped revenue number; 

and $0.118 of that amount must be allocated to the Fund. Taxpayers 

have not conceded their position by agreeing that the revenue cap 

applies, and they have at least pleaded that, taking the revenue cap into 

consideration, the City Officials allocated an insufficient amount to the 

Fund in violation of the City Charter. 
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Moreover, although the City Officials generally argue that 

Taxpayers’ calculation is simplistic and incorrect, we are unable to 

discern from their briefing precisely how the City Officials’ 

understanding of the calculation method differs from the method 

Taxpayers have advanced. The City Officials argue that applying the 

revenue cap outlined in Article III, Section 1 produces an “indexed 

amount” that the total ad valorem tax proceeds may not exceed, that the 

tax rates are adjusted accordingly, and that an amount equivalent to 

$0.118 of the capped proceeds must then be budgeted to the Fund. Thus, 

the City Officials and Taxpayers seem to agree that, one way or another, 

ad valorem tax revenue is capped, and the $0.118 multiplier applies to 

the capped amount. But according to the City Officials, the resulting 

calculation yields $47 million, and according to Taxpayers, the 

calculation yields almost $97 million. The discrepancy appears to stem 

from different understandings of how to take the revenue cap into 

account. 

According to the City Officials, Taxpayers have applied the $0.118 

multiplier to an erroneous “base amount” that is “grounded in raw tax 

valuations,” while the City Officials have applied it to the proper 

“indexed base amount” that is grounded in final valuations and the 

revenue cap. Perhaps that is true, and perhaps the fact of the matter is 

that the City Officials properly allocated ad valorem tax proceeds to the 

Fund, in which case Taxpayers’ ultra vires claim fails on its merits.4 But 

4 Taxpayers cite a press release in which the Mayor allegedly admitted 

that the City Officials did not properly allocate ad valorem tax revenue to the 
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we cannot glean from the briefing or the evidence precisely how the City 

Officials calculated the allocation, whether they did so in the manner 

they themselves argue the Charter requires, or whether their 

calculation method conforms to the Charter’s requirements. As a result, 

we cannot say the City Officials have met their burden for dismissal on 

a plea to the jurisdiction. See Heinrich, 284 S.W.3d at 378. 

The City Officials insist that they have conclusively negated the 

alleged facts underlying the ultra vires claim, relying principally on a 

page from the City’s September 2019 Monthly Financial Report 

indicating the projected Fiscal Year 2020 Fund allocation was calculated 

as follows:

Fund. The City Officials respond that Taxpayers misconstrue the language in 

the press release to twist it into “some sort of admission” of a violation of the 

Charter. We need not address the effect, if any, of the press release to conclude 

that a fact issue exists.
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According to this document, the City Officials reached the disputed 

$47 million figure5 by subtracting the undisputed debt service amount

($155,855,000) from $202,988,000, described in the document as 

“Property Tax Revenue – General Fund ($0.118 equivalent of City’s Ad 

Valorem Tax Levy).” But again, the document provides no detail as to 

the source of that number, at what point or to what funds the revenue 

cap was applied, or any other relevant calculations. We cannot discern 

from that document or the City Officials’ other exhibits6 or arguments 

whether the starting point for Taxpayers’ calculation was erroneous or, 

relatedly, whether the City Officials’ starting point was correct.

In sum, on this record we are unable to resolve the legal question 

of how to calculate the appropriate allocation of ad valorem tax revenue 

to the Fund. Nor have the City Officials conclusively demonstrated that 

no genuine fact issue exists as to how they actually allocated the funds

in Fiscal Year 2020. For both of these reasons, dismissal is unwarranted 

at this stage. However, we emphasize that, in agreeing with the trial 

court’s denial of the plea to the jurisdiction, we do not imply that 

Taxpayers will ultimately succeed on the merits of their claim. We 

5 The amounts in the document are “expressed in thousands.”

6 The entire Monthly Financial Report, of which the above-referenced 

document is a part, was admitted as an exhibit at the hearing. The report is 

very dense, spanning fifty-four pages, and the City Officials direct us to no 

portions of the report providing the missing details. After oral argument before 

this Court, the City Officials filed a supplemental letter that included a onepage “demonstrative exhibit” containing new information about their

calculation methods. That information was not before the trial court and is 

therefore not properly before us. Even if we were to consider the exhibit, 

however, we cannot glean sufficient information from it to resolve the open 

legal and factual questions regarding the City Officials’ calculations.
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simply hold that at this stage of the litigation, the record does not 

support granting the City Officials’ plea.

IV. Declaratory and Mandamus Relief

The City Officials argue in the alternative that Taxpayers’ claims 

for mandamus and declaratory relief are improper and must be 

dismissed. The City Officials’ mandamus argument mirrors their ultra 

vires argument: they assert that Taxpayers have not pleaded that the 

City Officials failed to perform a ministerial duty or committed a clear 

abuse of discretion. See Walker v. Packer, 827 S.W.2d 833, 839–40 (Tex. 

1992) (explaining that mandamus relief is appropriate to correct a clear 

abuse of discretion when there is no adequate remedy at law). This 

argument fails for the reasons discussed above.

Finally, the City Officials argue that the declaratory-judgment 

claim must be dismissed because the declaratory relief Taxpayers seek

is duplicative of the relief they seek by injunction or mandamus. See 

Patel v. Tex. Dep’t of Licensing & Regulation, 469 S.W.3d 69, 79 (Tex. 

2015) (explaining that “courts will not entertain an action brought under 

the UDJA when the same claim could be pursued through different 

channels”). We agree with Taxpayers that at this stage, it is premature 

to dismiss the request for declaratory relief on the grounds asserted. It 

is certainly possible that if Taxpayers prevail, they could be awarded 

relief that would render a declaratory judgment redundant and thus 

improper. But the trial court did not err in declining to dismiss the claim 

on a plea to the jurisdiction. 
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V. Conclusion

We hold that by alleging that taxpayer funds are being spent in 

contravention of a City Charter provision requiring that they be spent 

exclusively for drainage and street maintenance, Taxpayers have 

alleged an illegal expenditure sufficient to support taxpayer standing. 

We further hold that the City Officials are not entitled to dismissal of 

Taxpayers’ ultra vires claim on governmental immunity grounds at this 

time. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals’ judgment and 

remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings.

 

 Debra H. Lehrmann

 Justice

OPINION DELIVERED: June 3, 2022