In all the Trump madness, the rest of the ballot gets short shrift. But, I always like to think about the local stuff at election time (you know, the elections where your vote actually counts for something). I'm actually having a hard time getting a sample ballot that I am confident is complete. But, one proposition I know about is the HISD Robin Hood vote. The ballot will say: And you vote For or Against. The language makes no sense, so it'll probably pass. But, from what I understand, it's like this. We have a Robin Hood funding mechanism for school districts. The district is funded from property taxes within its limits, but then the state calculates if a district is 'rich.' If it is, the state expropriates some funds and put them in a special Robin Hood account. Then, after the poor districts fail to completely fund themselves from property taxes, the state will fill the gap first from the Robin Hood account and then from the General Fund. HISD has been determined 'rich' per the formula and is on the block to send $162m to the Robin Hood fund. If we vote For, we'll send the $162m in 2017 (8% of the district's budget), and then additional funds every year thereafter (no need to go back to the voter if they get this one). However, if we vote Against, we keep our money but the state will 'detach' $18B in commercial real estate and give them to other school districts to make our district fall under the 'rich' threshold. So, we're kinda screwed either way. The Chronicle argues that we should vote No, saying that the funds in the Robin Hood account will not improve education funding for other districts. Without the Robin Hood funds, Texas would still have to fund those districts from the General Fund. The Robin Hood accounts will reduce how much must be funded from the General Fund and will only increase the amount of money available to build highways or to make sure Obama doesn't overthrow Abbott with some Jade Helm exercise. They also say the Robin Hood system is barely constitutional now and that refusing to pay in could contribute to spurring reform of education funding in Texas. I'm undecided on how I want to vote. In general, I think Texas underfunds schools. But our options here are a bit of an exercise of shuffling the deck chairs while the boat is sinking. So maybe it doesn't even matter. Since the cap is on the richness of the taxable base and not on taxes raised, the effect either way will be to put upward pressure on the HISD tax rate and/or downward pressure on the HISD operating budget. Is there any way in which HISD is better off going one way or the other? HISD's view: http://blogs.houstonisd.org/news/20...ition-i-and-recapture-on-the-november-ballot/ Chronicle's view: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/recommendations/article/Robbing-HISD-9243089.php
Thanks for starting this thread. Here's the Chron opinion piece: Spoiler Voters will face a test on Election Day, and whether they answer correctly will determine the future of the Houston Independent School District. It should be a simple question, but it's written in the obtuse vernacular of lawmakers who really don't want voters to understand it. The ballot provision will ask voters to authorize the board of trustees of HISD to purchase attendance credits from the state with local tax revenue. That sounds like a good, progressive measure, but be warned - it is a trick question. The ballot is really asking whether HISD should submit itself to state recapture and send $162 million in local property tax dollars to Austin. The correct answer is "NO. "If this misleading ballot provision passes, HISD will not only be required to send $162 million in local property tax dollars to the state next year. The district will also likely face higher annual payments for the foreseeable future under the state's broken school finance system. The mandate comes about because rising property values have made HISD subject to "Robin Hood" provisions under the Texas Education Code. All those skyscrapers and rapidly appreciating homes have apparently pushed HISD over the top. As Texas schools are financed through property taxes, the recapture provisions (what we know as Robin Hood) were supposed to provide a way to equalize school funding across the state - for poor and wealthy schools alike. In May, the Texas Supreme Court held that this system of school finance is marginally constitutional. Consider that assessment a D-minus grade. The fact of the matter is that the state's school funding formula fails to accomplish its intended goals of helping poor school districts. Technically these recaptured funds are supposed to help schools that need the resources. If the provision worked like a true Robin Hood, it would "rob" from the rich and "give" to the poor. But in reality, the system robs from the poor and gives to legislators so that they don't have to raise state taxes. There's no guarantee that poor schools will receive a single extra dime if HISD pays up. How does this work? Simply put, the state keeps two bank accounts: one for general revenue and one for the recaptured Robin Hood sums. Every dollar that the state pays from Robin Hood frees up general revenue money that the state otherwise would have to spend to help poor schools. So instead of giving extra money to needy districts, any HISD money will essentially be spent on highways, border security or some other appropriation besides education. If this passes, then HISD is projected to send more than $1 billion of our local property taxes to the state over the next four years. Not only does that hurt HISD, but it looks an awful lot like a state property tax - which is prohibited in the Texas Constitution. Houston's economy is strong and diverse, but to maintain that edge Houston needs well-educated students. If HISD has to pay recapture, it will face a $95 million budget deficit in the next budget cycle. In an ironic twist, that budget deficit will end up hurting the very students that Robin Hood is supposed to help. More than 75 percent of HISD students are disadvantaged. It is a sign of our bizarre and busted school finance system that the district with the largest number of poor families will have to give away critically needed resources. Voters can block this preposterous outcome. By voting no, Houstonians will keep their money and instead authorize the commissioner of education to detach $18 billion worth of commercial property from HISD and assign it to other school districts. This has never happened before, and such a radical move would give the Legislature an opportunity to rectify the situation. A "no" vote won't end the problem. However, it will give the Legislature the entire 2017 session to fix school finance in Texas and keep local taxpayer dollars in our HISD schools. It is a tricky question, but the answer is simple. Vote "No" on attendance credits. One important thing to consider is that HISD is NOT unique in these payments. Districts like Spring Branch and Grapevine all have to pay. In fact Austin ISD pays way more than HISD. My point is that other districts are sure to challenge this provision in the future (if they haven't already). I really don't like the fact that voting "YES" opens the proverbial floodgates in subsequent years. I also have no desire to reward those fools in Austin for their terrible education policy. I'm leaning "NO", but I'm willing to hear the other side's argument.
This is a situation where a "none of the above" option would be nice, forcing legislators to actually reform the system, which needs to be done. Maybe a "no" vote would be the best way to force their hand though. All I know is HISD has already made a lot of cuts to the central office and individual campuses that has been felt, and recapture has only just begun.
The TX legislature goes into session early next year. They could actually do something if they were of a mind to. Unfortunately, I have no faith that any system they create would be any better than the current one. However, I suppose my thinking is that if we vote Yes, we go out with a whimper and the Legislature doesn't have to touch it. If we say no, we dare them to do detachment. That will likely get more press and more angry homeowners. Of course, when angry homeowners get involved, irrational public policy usually results.
I will have to think on this . . . .. Thanks for bringing it up. In fact I need to look at the other local voting issues Rocket River
All I know about HISD from Facebook is that they're in debt but spending a million dollars to change Confederate school names, which several individual black ladies said they didn't want changed.
City of Houston Election This is another Prop Proposition 1 (Relating to the area formerly known as the City of Houston Heights as it existed on February 19, 1918.) The legal sale of beer and wine for off-premise consumption only. Does this mean you can take drinks from the restuarant and stroll around? http://harrisvoterinfo.com/harris-county-political-races.html Rocket River
^ Here's a good overview regarding that referrendum: http://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/a...heights-dry-zone-kicks-off-election-campaign/ TL;DR: Specific to the Heights only. It doesn’t repeal the original law that established the ban but merely allows for beer and wine to be sold in stores. there is no formal opposition, so it'll pass
Thank you. It's basically no big deal I am truly ready to rid ourselves of the Blue Laws Rocket River
I've been thinking about this recapture more and it strikes me as not as unfair as I had initially supposed. Now, obviously it's better for us if we get to keep our own money, but I'm not really convinced by the argument of defunding at-need kids. And, I know Mayor Turner wants us to vote No on this and try to get reform at the statehouse, but I don't know what sort of change he's hoping for -- a system where rich cities like Houston keep their money and poor cities do without? I'm not on board if that's the alternative legislation. The formula they use of real estate value divided by number of enrolled students is a sort of budget soft cap. It says that a community as rich as ours should be able to support X number of children. It is not a hard cap though on the dollars raised because the district can just increase the tax % if it needs more money. I also read that if properties are reassigned to other school districts, they will likely be charged at a higher percentage. That implies to me that HISD is essentially putting a lighter tax burden on its property owners. If we want HISD to have that ~$160m, we can tax property owners more. There are a bunch of rules about setting rates. Here is a Guide from the Comptroller: http://www.lfcisd.net/UserFiles/Servers/Server_758/File/Finance/Truth in Taxation Guide.pdf. I read a little and decided I'm not so interested in the subject that I'm going to make myself an expert. But, I also found tax rates by school district for all of Texas here: http://tea.texas.gov/Finance_and_Gr...rces/School__District_Tax_Policy_and_Reports/ HISD charges 1.1967%. The unweighted average for Texas school districts is 1.2821%. The median is 1.2789% The highest is 1.67%, shared by 12 districts. The lowest is 0.7066% for Kelton ISD up on the edge of the panhandle -- the districts out in the sticks with no population density look to have lower rates. HISD is within a standard deviation (+/- 0.1612) of the average, but we are the cheapest of the top 10 largest school districts in the state: Houston ISD 1.1967% Austin ISD 1.2020% Dallas ISD 1.2821% Aldine ISD 1.2859% Northside ISD 1.2900% Fort Bend ISD 1.3400% Fort Worth ISD 1.3520% Northside ISD 1.3755% Cypress-Fairbanks ISD 1.4400% Katy ISD 1.5166% (I don't know why Northside has 2 entries, but they have different ID numbers.) So, sure we have kids we need to spend money on. It doesn't feel good to give a billion dollars in a half-decade. But we really are a rich city, and maybe property owners are getting by a little too cheaply. I still don't really like the mechanism by which our school district tax dollars essentially subsidize the general fund, but the objections to the system seem mostly like a minimize-my-taxes-and-forget-about-the-children argument in disguise. Money is fungible, which is why the recapture subsidizes the General Fund, but it's also why not recapturing subsidizes Houston property owners. Relying on our wealthy base means we pay less out of our wealth than other Texans do. HISD is underfunded. Instead of stopping Robinhood, raise the property tax rates to fund them properly.
If HISD is considered a rich school district why is ranked so poorly? I would not want my kids going to HISD schools. http://www.greatschools.org/texas/houston/houston-independent-school-district/
@Air Langhi, maybe because there is a stronger correlation between performance and the wealth of the student body than there is between performance and the wealth of the taxable base.
Because throwing money at education doesn't help without real reform. Every year, the best districts spend much less per student vs. bad districts that can spend 2 or 3x per student. Socio economic problems, the ability for parents to push education to their kids, general environment of the school, and happy, motivated teachers make better students and get better results. That doesn't always correlate to how much money you throw at a problem.
There are plenty of good schools within HISD; I happen to teach at one, which our son attends as well. Shoot, Carnegie Vanguard is among the highest ranking high schools in the US. Now while HISD is considered property wealthy, a large majority of its student population comes from low-income households. So you're taking away funds from those that need it most. I agree with this, but adequate funding does help too. Obviously you can't throw money at the situation and expect it to be fixed. But giving schools adequate resources, a full staff to meet the needs of students, and compensating teachers with respectable pay are certainly important components when addressing education issues.
HISD Proposition 1 was defeated. Now, maybe the Texas Legislature will revisit the law, or they'll just take our tax base and give it to someone else. In the end, I voted for Prop 1 because in this political climate in this state, I expect any reform of school financing will go in the wrong direction and reduce equality. I think Houston is engaged in some not-in-my-backyard thinking here. We're fine with equality until it means we might have to pay something, then we're suddenly a bunch of Randians. Disappointed, but not surprised. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/...roversial-school-finance-measure-hisd-prop-1/
Okay, so our November bluff to try to get the state legislature to fix education funding failed as expected, now we have it on the ballot again, in May when no one is looking. It's funny, if we had voted yes to Prop 1 last time, somehow I don't think they'd have asked us again. So, how will you vote now? Last time, Houston and HISD wanted us to vote no, but I voted yes. This time, they want us to vote yes, but I'm thinking about voting no. I'm told, as rationale for their flip-flop, that they were able to knock tens of millions off the cost because of the November vote. That's great. But, the more I learn about school financing, the more I want to burn the whole thing to the ground. Voting yes means that it'll be less costly for the HISD tax payers. It also means the HISD board has more flexibility. As I understand it, once we begin payments to the state, the board will have some options in following years to share the overage directly with other school districts instead of putting the money in the General Fund. That at least makes sure that education funds are spent on education somewhere. Voting no means they will detach some commercial real estate from HISD and give it to another school district, probably Aldine. Since HISD charges some of the lowest property tax rates around, those detached areas will end up paying more. Then, to be revenue neutral, HISD would need to increase their tax, or else they need to make more cuts to spending. Homeowners will be pissed. Commercial tenants will be pissed. Pissed enough that the state legislature will finally do something to fix it? I'm probably dreaming there. And, of course at the end of the rainbow here is the Republican wet dream of school vouchers and privatization. I'm not opposed to privatization. I'd probably trust a smart Democrat to try it. But Robin Hood looks more like a cap on investments in education than it is an equalization. And, we've been seeing a tightening on school budgets for years and years. The more failure state government can foist on public school districts, the more likely it is they can get a popular mandate to privatize. It is possible that putting political pressure on the state legislature to do something to fix Robin Hood will mean only fixing it with vouchers. Depending on your confidence they can pull off privatization, that can be a good or a bad thing. I'm still vacillating. I changed my mind a couple of times while writing this post. There are no good options here because my real policy preference is that we start spending a whole lot more money on education, and that's the one thing our state government does not want to do.
HISD 6th graders are -0.5 grades behind the national average. Maybe the school district should be broken up. Let the good parts have their district and the other parts their own. It may be a "management" issue and not so much a "money" issue.
Have you ever considered that school district performance is not solely a matter of management or money? Or even things in the district's control?
