Stuck Between A Rock And A Hard Place
So what do you do when the Legislature limits the revenue you can raise as a local government taxing entity and then does not give you the funding that you think you need to run your operation? Complain about it, apparently. Welcome to the world of public education in Texas.
The question of “How are we to make ends meet?” was certainly the prevailing notion at Commissioner Scott’s recent Education summit, where education leaders from across the state began discussions on the proposed education budget that Commissioner Scott will be taking to the Legislature. Their predicament is simple, most are at the point where they can not raise property taxes without a public vote, and the Lege has their heels dug in when it comes to their request for more education dollars.
Now, I am not an expert on public school finance and as such I will not pretend to be one. But I do firmly believe that the topic does deserve a forum, so I will pass along to you 3 articles that covered the summit and that can better articulate the problem at hand.
My guess is that given the limited resources and the rising costs of such necessities as gas and food, that school districts all across the state are about to find themselves in the same boat that the Lege was in back in 2003, that being the SS Budget Cuts. However, I do not consider this to be a terrible scenario. A tough scenario, yes. But not a terrible one.
The budget deficit of 2003 coupled with a Republican Legislature’s will to not raise taxes forced our lawmakers to put on Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Taxpayer’s shoes and understand that there is only so much money in the bank and that they needed to balance their priorities accordingly. I, personally, think that a dose of that same concept could be healthy for school districts who have grown accustom to falling back on their ability to just raise property taxes.
We’ll see if I am right about their fate to come, and if so, how exactly it works out.
Not to be too difficult on school districts, I will offer this after thought to taxpayers. You get what you pay for. You asked the Legislature to get school property taxes under control, now don’t be surprised when your kid’s bus stop gets cut from the route.
One Response to “Stuck Between A Rock And A Hard Place”
By Red in Round Rock on Aug 1, 2008
It is ironic that our quarter of a million dollar man Jesus Chavez is complaining about not being able to tax us enough when he’s received two lavish raises in two years, his schools fail to meet the 65% TEA target rate for instruction expenditures, RRISD revenues have increased 75% while student population has only increased 30%, and the district has asked for special allowances so as not to be reduced from acceptable to unacceptable. The only answer we’re going to get from him is ‘give me more money.’