There is hardly a school district in Texas that is not facing a financial crisis. Contrary to what many people outside the districts think, this crisis is not the result of administrative incompetence, poor planning, over-spending, teacher’s salaries that are too high, resources wasted on programs not needed and whatever else it is that people choose to believe based on whatever rumor they’ve heard. Some people are already opposing what ought to be called a tax ratification election instead of a tax roll-back election on the basis of bad information.
Here’s the truth.
If the tax ratification election is approved in the school districts in Grayson County that can benefit from approval, school tax-payers in every school district will still be paying a lower rate than they were paying in 2005. The cap on school taxes at that time was $1.50 per $100 of taxable evaluation for maintenance and operation. Nearly every school district in the county was either at the cap or very near it.
If the tax ratification election is a success, the maximum tax rate will be $1.17 for maintenance and operation. In some districts, that will raise taxes 13 cents for every $100 of taxable evaluation. In some school districts, that 13 cent increase, which amounts to $130 a year on a house valued at $100,000, will bring in $2 from the state for every dollar local tax payers pay.
In Howe, for example, local taxpayers will pay a total of $200,000 and the state will double that amount with $400,000. That’s a total of $600,000 in the school district’s coffers.
In other school districts, the state will match the local effort almost dollar for dollar. In Denison, if local tax payers approve the increase that will bring in local revenue of $1.4 million, the state will kick in $1.3.
In Sherman, if local taxpayers approve the increase that will bring in local revenue of $2.6 million, the state will contribute $1.3. That’s a match of 50 cents on the dollar.
In every school district, taxpayers over 65 years old will not see a tax increase because, if they claim a homestead exemption, their school taxes are frozen.
All that money is sitting in Austin, waiting for someone to claim. It would be a shame for it to go to build a bridge to nowhere when it could be going to build a bridge to the future for our children and grandchildren.
The Shibboleth that schools are spending too much on administration bears some notice.
As a rule of thumb, the state sets a limit of about 14 percent of state funding for administration. Most school districts in Grayson County are well below that percentage. To find out exactly how much below, interested parties can call the business office of their local school district.
It is a myth that new businesses (read new taxpayers) increase revenue for the schools. That’s because the state reduces, dollar for dollar, the amount of its contribution when new taxpayers move into the district and begin paying taxes.
The present crisis is the result of another unfortunate truth.
Texas state legislators have consistently refused to deal with the problems of school finance in ways that benefit local school districts. Instead, they have learned to repeat the mantra “no new taxes” so that it sounds as if they are a 78 rpm record with a needle stuck in the groove. And they have already announced their intention to ignore school funding issues until the 2011 legislative session.
Texas is among the top 10 richest states in the United States, yet it consistently ranks near the bottom in its tax and appropriation efforts to support public schools. State legislators, instead of stepping up to the plate, have dumped the responsibility for funding public schools on local school boards and administrators who must face the wrath of local tax payers when the price of gasoline doubles, the price of electricity and natural gas increase dramatically and school revenue frozen at the 2005 level can’t be stretched to cover the increases.
These increases have come at the same time school districts have been required to provide defibrillators on every campus and at every sports event, teach students how to evacuate a school bus, not once but twice a year (even though the students may not ride the bus), fingerprint every new employee and pay for a background check, and pick up the cost of paying into the Texas Teacher Retirement System when the state gave teachers and other personnel a salary increase. Those aren’t the only unfunded mandates, but they provide a fairly good picture.
When the Texas state legislators passed the most recent bill dealing with school finance in 2005, they basically eliminated any way for local school districts to recover the cost of those unfunded mandates or the increased costs over which the districts had no control. The only way they could increase their revenue was to raise taxes, and the only way to raise taxes was to have a local election approving the increase.
The rollback/tax ratification elections are an opportunity for local taxpayers to support their communities' schools by insuring there is enough money to maintain quality programs. They also are an opportunity to tell the legislators that they are committed to public schools and they expect the same level of commitment from the men and women who are supposed to represent them in Austin.