Texas can’t stick cities with bill, then blame them for paying it
Are you one of the 2.3 million people who call Houston home? Are you among the more than 75 percent of Texans who live in a city?
Then I’m sorry to tell you: You’re responsible for all of America’s problems.
At least, that’s what Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick insinuated to an interviewer on Fox Business Network.
“And where do we have all our problems in America?” Patrick asked. “Not at the state level run by Republicans, but in our cities that are mostly controlled by Democrat mayors and Democrat city councilmen and women. That’s where you see liberal policies. That’s where you see high taxes. That’s where you see street crime.”
Now, Patrick calls Houston home as well, but I’m guessing as a Republican of the far-right variety, he excludes himself from the shame of urban blame. I’m assuming he’s mostly just ridiculing the majorities of urban-dwellers who exercised their constitutional rights to vote for local leaders of their choice.
But if Patrick wants to distance himself from the challenges of city living, he should abstain from the advantages as well. If I spot him at the Houston Grand Opera or at an Astros game or at James Beard Awardwinning Hugo’s, I will call him out. He better not think about holding a news conference on the Ship Channel or anywhere else to crow about Houston’s economic engine: The region represents more than 30 percent of Texas’ GDP and around 25 percent of the state’s employment.
Cities have problems. Sure. Funny thing: The more humans you have, the more cars you have, the more toothbrushes, weed whackers and fidget spinners you have, the more crimes you have. But there’s a trade-off. We don’t have nearly as many feral hogs. And the number decreases further during legislative sessions.
Patrick’s biggest sin isn’t ranking cities just south of the pit of hell; it’s bestowing sainthood on state leaders and depicting their governance as infallible. The blame game is a fine strategy in news releases and presidential Twitter tantrums but in the real world, people have sense.
They’ve upgraded their ana-
lytical skills beyond good and evil. For instance, most of us understand that fixing Texas’ broken school finance system is more important than telling Texans where to pee.
But some areas aren’t so clear. Take the particularly angsty topic of property taxes.
Patrick and other state leaders think they can get away with shifting responsibility for Texans’ discontentment with property tax bills to local governments because the average Texan doesn’t know where the heck the bill comes from; they just want to pay less.
Rollback dilemma
So Patrick’s allies, such as state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, come along and say they’re trying to help Texans crying out for “relief ” and “reform.” You might be fooled into thinking that means a tax cut. It doesn’t. The author of a similar House bill has been clear about that.
What Bettencourt’s bill does is require larger cities, counties and taxing districts to seek voter approval if the amount of property tax revenues collected is higher than 4 percent of the amount collected the previous year. Current law triggers a “rollback” election at 8 percent.
That might sound great to some of you. The problem is that the rise in tax bills is coming generally from increased home values, not local entities hiking rates. Bettencourt’s bill would hamstring a city’s ability to provide services, including police and fire. Houston, for instance, spends around 60 percent of property tax dollars on public safety.
“It just slows the growth of government revenue and slows the growth of tax bills,” Bettencourt, R-Houston, told me this week.
I asked him about the consequence in Houston, where Police Chief Art Acevedo often notes that he’s already short 2,000 officers. Bettencourt questioned the accuracy of that number. I said I’d trust the police chief over a senator on that one.
“He’s new to the job,” Bettencourt said with a laugh. He’s a happy warrior — one undeterred by the fact that the previous Houston police chief has raised similar concerns.
The senator also sidestepped questions about the Legislature’s pattern of shifting costs once borne by the state onto local governments. One reason property taxes are higher — other than the fact that we don’t have a state income tax — is that Texas fails to adequately fund schools, gradually decreasing its contribution over the past decade, forcing local districts to pick up the slack.
‘Underhanded’
As Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner wrote recently in an op-ed: “It’s unfair and underhanded for state leaders to underfund public education and then criticize school district leaders for trying to make up the difference with local tax levies — or leaving students without proper staffing and resources.”
Counties, meanwhile, are saddled with unfunded mandates ranging from housing state jail inmates to hospitals tasked with caring for people left uninsured after Texas refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
The gas tax hasn’t been raised in a quarter century. And the franchise tax debacle eventually led to cuts that siphoned off another source of revenue.
The Legislature has the power to offer Texas homeowners real property tax relief. To do so would require political courage.
Lacking that, we get state leaders who scapegoat local governments and at least one who demonizes millions of voters and their elected leaders in an increasingly urban state.
“I think they realize they can’t cut state taxes anymore and they realize that cutting the franchise tax was a mistake,” said Dick Lavine, a tax expert at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for low income Texans. “This way they can force someone else to cut taxes and not take responsibility for the consequences.”
Nope. No problem there.