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School districts eye property tax hikes
More State AUSTIN -- Despite higher property values, more than 100 Texas school districts say they're being squeezed by higher energy costs and increased state standards and have asked voters strapped by the national financial crisis to raise property tax rates this fall.
Already, the requests have been rejected by voters in about a quarter of the districts that have held the tax rollback elections.
"Times are tough," said Lois Anne New, business and finance director at the Huntsville school district, when asked why voters there rejected a school tax hike last Friday. "Plus it was all going on right after Hurricane Ike came through ... then of course you had the scare with stock market and retirement funds, it's just the economy in general."
Increased fuel and utility costs with no adjustment for inflation from the state contributed to the district's $3 million hole. For now, that money will come from the school's fund balance, New said.
But if no relief comes from the state soon, she said, next year's budget will include employee cuts and fewer instructional programs like elementary art and music.
Most of the 54 remaining district tax votes will be on Nov. 4.
A massive overhaul of the school finance system two years ago included a provision that allowed school districts to go to voters for more tax money. The state's high court said then that school districts were being forced to tax property owners at the legal limit, $1.50 per $100 of property value. Without meaningful discretion to set their own rates, the property tax cap had become a statewide property tax, which is unconstitutional in Texas.
The Legislature answered with a plan to lower school property tax rates from the cap of $1.50 to $1. That gave districts the option of raising their tax rates by an additional four cents in the first year.
Additionally, school districts could raise the rates an additional 13 cents in later years if approved by voters. Those are the elections coming into play in about 10 percent of the state's school district's this year.
Most school districts, like Huntsville, proposed a $1.17 rate -- the highest rate possible under the law. That does not include a separate, smaller tax rate for buildings and debt, which was not part of the school finance reforms.
"I hope they (lawmakers) see that there are so many school districts having these elections," she said. "Hopefully they'll realize they've got to do something to help us."
But Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, questioned whether the state should pour more money into school districts to help ease the rising cost of inflation.
"We sent $50 billion to the (Texas Education Agency) last year," Ogden said Tuesday during a legislative committee meeting to consider the issue. "The obvious question for me is ... are we spending the $50 billion that we have as wisely as we should and is it possible to spend smarter to address the issues?"
Posted by tx_loner on October 15, 2008 at 5:39 a.m. (Suggest removal)
A South TX school gets a $1M prize. In these tough times it seems that could have been distributed throughout the entire State. And what about the Lottery...I thought those monies were to go toward education. It seems there should be other resources than raising taxes again.
Posted by hisoneandonly on October 15, 2008 at 7:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)
maybe Polnick shouldn't have gotten that BIG fat raise
Posted by lillian5 on October 15, 2008 at 7:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Sell all of the sports stuff to the locals and use the money to educate. All the sports a school needs is the area to do PE in...will save millions in tax payer money and maintenance..
Posted by officerx on October 15, 2008 at 9:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)
So I guess in your world, lillian5, cops and coaches are the root of all evil.....
Posted by ebtry on October 15, 2008 at 9:47 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"maybe Polnick shouldn't have gotten that BIG fat raise"
<gasp> Are you allowed to say that? Have you no shame in questioning the man who is running our schools into the ground?
Well at least this article will give the guy a reason to up our taxes. Heck, if everyone else is doing it, why can't I... is what he will say.
Posted by ebtry on October 15, 2008 at 9:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
officer, there you go again showing your ignorance.
I guess in your world a head football coach deserves a salary of around $95k or so compared to a hard working teacher who actually contributes to the child's future and get's paid less.
As for cops, if you really are one, scary, very scary... Thank goodness for IA departments...
Posted by gfm413 on October 15, 2008 at 3:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)
everytime one of the football coaches gets a raise, it can cost 4 times the amount of that raise.
Lets say that AHS head coach is thinking of leaving, the AISD board offers him a 10K year raise to stay and he accepts
Then, the Cooper head coach gets the same raise, because their salary is the same for that position
Then if that 10K raise puts his salary over that of the principal of that school, the principal gets a raise because the coach isn't supposed to make more than the principal.
isn't that nice to know as a tax payer?
Posted by ropers40 on October 15, 2008 at 6:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up faster.
New taxes in the current financial crisis.
These school boards and city councils need to get out and see what the real issues are.
Everyone is cutting back and for the time being the schools and the cities need to do the same.
Lets go to trash pick-up once a week, cut out the street lamps on the well lit thoroughfares, stop letting city employees take city vehicles home, go to half lit schools and goverment buildings.
There are lots of ways to save money you just have to get creative.
We have gone to half lighting where I work and it has done a lot of good.
Posted by canefan1 on October 15, 2008 at 7:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I'm an avid sports lover, and I love that my kids are involved with school sports. However, maybe it's about time we really look at cutting sports. As much as I hate to say that, I feel that we've gotten our priority mixed. I'm sure others would say that art and music should be cut before sports. Next thing you know everyone will have his or her own opinion of what should stay or what should go. Maybe we should trim everything back and go back to the basics. That is to provide only the core classes. I’m sure that’s a little to extreme, but we need to do something.
If I was president no one should be left behind that’s why I plan to provide $799 billions to stimulate our education system!!!! Okay, that was random.
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