School finance
Vote ‘no’ on a misleading budget measure that will hurt Houston public education.
Statewide property taxes are unconstitutional in Texas, but don’t tell that to the legislators in Austin.
For decades, the Legislature has been shifting its obligation to fund public education to local communities. Now, this November, Houston is facing a new sneaky invoice from the state. There’s a misleading budget measure on the ballot asking whether Houston Independent School District should submit itself to state recapture and send $162 million in local property tax dollars to Austin. As we’ve previously stated, the correct answer is “NO,” or “AGAINST.”
If the measure passes, HISD, a district with 3 out of 4 of its students considered economically disadvantaged, will have to significantly cut its budget and send $162 million in local tax revenues earmarked for public schools this year to Austin. The tab over four years is estimated to be $1 billion.
If the measure fails, HISD still may not be spared the budget cuts, as the Texas Education Agency will have the power to remove the highest-value commercial properties from the tax pool that pays into HISD and permanently assign the tax revenue to a poorer school system.
A vote against the measure offers education advocates one advantage: time. It will give the Legislature an opportunity to address the larger problem of why these draconian budget cuts are being foisted on a district that serves poor students.
If you are confused not only about this ballot measure but about how our public schools are financed in Texas, you’re not alone. This ballot measure and the subsequent sequence of events it will trigger are hard for most of us to follow.
Unfortunately, the lack of transparency runs deeper than this faulty ballot measure and the convoluted process it will set into motion. Most of us assume that these recaptured funds will be used to lift up poor schools. This is wrong.
Taxpayers who believe in good faith that the recaptured funds will be spent on poor schools are being duped. Instead these recaptured funds will offset the state’s obligation to fund education and will in effect be used for statewide costs such as transportation and border security. So not only is the state shifting its obligation to fund schools to local taxpayers, it’s also shifting to local taxpayers its obligation to provide other basic services.
A few obvious problems cry out for voters’ attention. It’s wrong for the Legislature to syphon off property tax revenue intended for our schools and in effect apply these funds toward other purposes with an accounting sleight of hand.
Worse, the state is not just shortchanging public education in the case of recapture. Any time property appraisals go up, the state reduces the revenues that it sends to local communities. So with each upward appraisal in a growing community, the result is that the Legislature further abdicates its constitutional duty to fund public education in Texas.
Rather than identifying state taxes sufficient to bring all districts up to standard, the Legislature in effect has mandated that local school boards find the tax revenues to do this. Let’s be clear: The whole point of this indirect system is to allow statewide elected officials to claim that they did not vote to levy taxes to provide a minimally adequate education.
As state lawmakers refuse to use statewide funds for education purposes, it puts more pressure on the local taxpayer. Any attempt to reduce local property taxes will not be successful unless the Legislature steps up and lawmakers have the courage to responsibly fund our schools.
Moreover, it’s unconscionable that the Legislature has put forward a ballot provision that is misleading on so many different levels. Ballot resolutions are supposed to solicit the will of the people, not trick voters.
Both of these issues are reflections of a larger problem: Our public school finance system is broken. The Texas Supreme Court held in May that our public school finance systems meets minimal constitutional requirements, but it urged transformational, top to bottom reforms. We agree.
For starters, the Legislature should determine what it costs to educate a child. It has its own estimate but this is a political number; it’s not research-based. Under law, the Legislature is required to determine whether it is spending an amount per pupil that is sufficient to meet the standards it has set. For far too many years, the Legislature has failed to initiate such a study. It’s time to stop the back-of-the-napkin, will-it-get-mere-elected calculations and put data to use.
Creating a well-functioning school finance system that meets the needs of today’s students and Texas’ workforce is the Legislature’s main job. Voters expect lawmakers to do this, not stoop to using contorted ballot language to prop up an out-of-date and marginally adequate education funding system.