Teacher pay

A novel idea

Regarding “Six-figure salaries rare for educators” (Page A1, Aug. 22), I read with interest Gov. Greg Abbott’s proposal for structuring a compensation plan for rewarding good teachers in our public schools. While we may all agree that our teachers, not just the high quality ones, are underpaid, we seldom get far with the discussion after the question of funding comes up. Ultimately, the discussion stalls when we get to the question of how to raise the money. As we know, funding for the independent school districts is tied to one revenue stream: property taxes.

What our school districts need is an additional, dependable revenue stream, separate and apart from property tax receipts. Some in the state have suggested a state tax on earned income. To me a more logical first step is to look closely at the state severance tax rates on gas (7.5 percent) oil (4.5 percent) and condensate (4.5 percent).

We are extracting this natural resource at record volumes, even to the extent of having to lay more pipelines to accommodate what a few years ago was unheard of; that is, exporting our oil and gas overseas! In the past, providing reductions to the severance tax was a way to incentivize the small players in the industry to drill. We don’t live in that world any longer. The large reserves belong to the big players who have brought to bear a significant degree of drilling and extraction efficiency. Big players don’t require incentivizing. They simply pass costs along.

So, as we grapple with how to help out our public schools, let’s think about raising the severance tax rates and directing that increase to public schools. Ted Thomas, New Braunfels