[Houston] 2015 Mayoral Election

Forgot one:

City of Houston Prop 2: "Shall the City Charter of the City of Houston be amended to reduce the number of terms of elective offices to no more than two terms in the same office and limit the length for all terms of elective office to four years, beginning in January 2016; and provide for transition?"

The mayor and City Council members are currently elected to 2-year terms with a limit of 3 terms. So this prop would actually extend incumbents' stay in office. Bill White had tried to get this changed when he was mayor, but it was defeated by the City Council.

I'm inclined to vote Yes. A 6-year tenure seems a little short. And campaigning every other year is burdensome.

 

It's a silly amendment for sure, but do you think that hunting and fishing is NOT regulated in Texas? What does the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department do?

On this one:

The law is already on the books, this just increases the population threshold for a county from 5000 people to 7500 people. Lots of rural places do not have an abundance of contractors to do certain road maintenance and such, this just allows landowners to request a bid from and then hire the county work crews to do that work. It is a safety issue in many cases. You have to have decent roads for first responders, for wildfire crews, etc...In small rural counties this has been standard practice for years and years without problem.

 

So far about 150,000 have voted early which ends tomorrow.
What I hear from some that are working the polling stations around
town is that it's looking like Turner and King in the runoff.

 

That also makes me wonder what they think a right is. If it is abrogated by the law, how is that a right?

Well, I don't know how I feel about the original law that allowed it for counties of 5,000. Is this really about contractor scarcity, or is it a play for King Ranch or some other heavy-hitter to get taxpayer-subsidized services? And why limit it at all if a larger county has a need? Just saying I'm not educated on it.

I think I'll vote for being able to reside outside of Austin. The criticisms I've seen is that state officials need to be close to their stakeholders and offices in Austin. I'm not going to vote someone in and then tell them how to do their jobs. I think people are more effective if they are close to their stakeholders and offices, but I'll leave it to them to figure out how exactly they'll do that. They've also said it'll allow some crooks to avoid accountability by residing in a very partisan Republican county that won't prosecute and/or convict them of malfeasance. The solution shouldn't be to force them to reside in a very partisan Democratic county that might be too willing to prosecute and/or convict. We can't just look to some white knight in Austin to stop corruption in Texas. We need courts all over Texas to be willing to do the work or we're sunk anyway.

 

There's always avenues for abuse and I'm sure it's happened on the small scale. Rural counties do not have an abundance of money for public works, so I would imagine that they are sticklers for "fair compensation". You would be talking about small amounts of thousands of dollars in a single county, and none of it is being paid for by the State. Again, none of this involves State money and it will not affect you in any way, shape or form.

 

This is really stupid.

 

First of all, it's clear (small) indefinite tax relief. Now to your question, Texas has some of the highest property tax rates in the entire country. Over the last few years property valuations also went crazy.

I myself was recently in this situation when our valuations had a huge jump. One the one hand, sure my property values increased but on the other it made it difficult to keep my home. Was almost forced to sell because mortgage (tax escrow) increased too much. My parents too, there valuation went up which raised their tax bill. They might have to downsize now. Home ownership, the American Dream LOL!!!

So how does an increasing valuation that punishes homeowners solve the broken school financial system? It doesn't, just more taxes collected from homeowners without any real solution to the problem.

Why not fix the school financial system first. Then legalize mar1juana, and collection an estimated 500 million in revenue. With gasoline prices dropping, you could increase state fuel tax by .01 or .02 without really impact folks and raise additional revenues. Why not legalize casinos so we can raise even more tax revenues here in our own state instead of Oklahoma and Louisiana. I just want Homeowners to be treated fairly and not fund a broken system. Fix the system first and then let everyone pay their share including smokers, drinkers, gamblers, drivers, and others.

 

Ah, but then you push up against pet issues of the religious fundamentalist bloc that wields disproportionate influence over Texas politics. With voter turnout as pitiful as it is in this state, Republicans pander to this reliable base. Unfortunately, the moment you begin talking about legalizing mar1juana and gambling is the moment you lose them. The only way to enact what you're talking about is to convince more people to vote.

 

Texas's school finance system is almost entirely dependent on property taxes. That's great if you live in a wealthy neighborhood because your property tax receipts are sky high.

However, if you happen to live in a poor neighborhood, you're out of luck. The Texas school finance system is inherently inequitable. The state pitches in some extra funding but nowhere near enough to actually create equitable funding.

And the kicker is that the Texas Constitution actually mandates equal access to education funding which means the current unequal property tax reliant system is almost always uncosntitutional. The other relevant clause is a prohibition on a statewide property tax which also becomes a problem because as the state cuts education funding, localities are forced to max out the property tax rate. When enough communities max out their property tax rate, courts generally rule that this becomes a "statewide" property tax which is also unconstitutional.

Even George Bush tried to fix this by proposing a statewide value added tax to supplement education funding in order to allow communities to lower property taxes by up to 50%. (not the solution I'd want but at least he was trying to find a statewide tax to fund education instead of local taxes)

Texans need to stop screwing around with education funding. I hate to say it but I'd even settle for Bush's value added tax and sales tax plan (while simultaneously scrapping the useless franchise tax). Bob Bullock admitted the real truth which was that Texas will never fix this until it introduces a state income tax but we all know that's never going to happen so the VAT plan still represents the best thing that I've heard (even if it is a pretty regressive tax)

 

I actually do not have too much of a problem with property tax when valued on a value such as purchase price. It then becomes a pure consumption tax: you can plan for it, budget for the tax. The size and value of your home has a certain tax on it that you can then decide whether or not to invest in that particular home.

The system now uses an arbitrary process of "home valuation" for a so called market price. HCAD (and other appraisal districts) and the Appraisal Review Boards, despite theoretically being a third party with no skin in the game act as political proxies and revenue generators for the taxing districts they are in.

Additionally, market forces completely outside of your control impact your tax bill. In almost every taxing scenario, you have some say in what taxes you pay:

In sales tax, you can decide to buy or not. Even in income tax, it is based on the revenue of your household, you have control over that...also, despite it being a progressive tax system, your tax bill is covered by the additional revenue you generate. If you have a huge income tax bill, it is because you had huge income.

Market based appraisals controlling your taxes are completely different. The neighborhood you purchased in 10 years ago gets hot and values rise? Your taxes go up. It affects retirees especially: 30 years of working and paying off your home and all of a sudden you cannot afford your own home due to gentrification or a hot housing market. The market value is a paper value...to be able to get any benefit from the higher value of your home you must sell and move, directly affecting your lifestyle...this often doesn't even help either...if housing prices have risen across the board, you are stuck buying a replacement at a higher price.

We try to limit this by having senior exemptions, but it still really hurts folks.

I'd rather pay more sales tax, or have a consumption based tax on real estate rather than this arbitrary market value based tax.

 

Actually, due to Robin Hood, many of the poorest neighborhoods have the highest school budgets, and the richest neighborhoods have lower. If you look at spending per student on education, usually those "poor" inner city districts have way more spending per student.

Rich, suburb districts: CyFair and Conroe ISD (which includes the Woodlands) spend ~$6,800 per student.

HISD and San Antonio SD spend $8300 and $9100 per student respectively...that's 22% to 33% more.

 

You're viewing this very narrowly. The larger gulf is between suburban schools and say South Texas or even rural districts in say East Texas. This is evaluated statewide and that's where the failure is. Also poorer school districts are supposed to have more money. Poorer school districts have to give more free breakfasts and lunches, provide access to subsidized or free school supplies, provide more money for bus transit, etc..

Also Robin Hood was changed quite dramatically after the 2005 Supreme Court case (where it ruled Robin Hood created a statewide property tax). Before the 2005 decision, Robin Hood funding was based on a formula that took into account all the different factors that makeup per pupil funding. The state changed the formula and created a "targeted revenue" formula that limited the number factors it used and those factors haven't been updated since they were created. The formula used today is broken. That's a big part of the school funding lawsuits.

But to your credit, the Conroe example is still a problem. The school funding formula is broken so there are districts with both high property taxes and an extremely poor population. (for example districts with large oil refineries). Those districts receive healthy property tax funding for school and get state funding because of the large percentage of poor students.

Robin Hood is a bad system. We can all agree on that. It was designed solely as a workaround to providing more equal funding without changing our reliance on property taxes and its been ruled unconstitutional multiple times (including last year). And last year it was ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that school funding wasn't equal anymore which primarily happened because the state cut billions from education funding in 2011. Texas actually spends less per pupil than we did in 10 years ago which is just absurd.

Which goes back to my point. Rather than trying to figure out how to redistribute property taxes. We need to switch to a statewide taxation method. An income tax will never ever fly but a VAT might be possible (even if it is regressive) and would allow communities to lower their property taxes by up to 50%.

 

I think fixing the real estate tax to your purchase price makes a lot of sense. I would still do it on a homestead exemption basis though. If you did it across the board, you'd have (1) speculators buying and sitting on property to take advantage of the low taxation and (2) an incentive for unofficial arrangements of habitation to avoid increasing the tax burden. I'd prefer commercial properties continue to pay at market rates to avoid incenting undesirable behaviors.

But funding everything with real estate and sales taxes is dumb anyway. I want an income tax. I'm not going to just surrender that as politically impossible. It will be politically impossible if everyone surrenders.

 

100% agree. An income tax is by far the best and most equitable way to properly fund education. But good luck getting that. You're more likely to get zoning laws in Houston.

A more realistic strategy is a combination of a VAT and a tax on interest and dividend income while abolishing the franchise tax and lowering property taxes substantially. The VAT would definitely be regressive but the interest and dividend tax is actually slightly progressive and would at least partially offset it.

 

Whose winning?

 

What a nasty, little **** Abbott is.