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Everybody doesn’t lose. Conservatives in Texas win big time with this strategy. They suck all the money out of the cities where all the liberals live and rely o

by isykt 3y ago

Everybody doesn’t lose. Conservatives in Texas win big time with this strategy. They suck all the money out of the cities where all the liberals live and rely on the rural voter base to wage the culture war. For example, the legislature just passed a law that stripped Austin of the ability to make various ordinances. It also funds its rural schools with payments from the cities — a consequence of having no state income tax and instead a high property tax.

pc86 3y ago
Do most states with income taxes fund schools from them? I've lived in several states but all have had both income and property taxes, and to my knowledge all of them funded schools exclusively from property taxes. In many of them there is literally a line item with the name of the school district. How is Texas funding rural schools with urban property taxes if they're in different districts?
- isykt 3y ago
  It’s called “recapture” and it’s worse than I described: https://recapturetexas.org/ https://recapturetexas.org/ The money doesn’t even go to education in rural areas, not completely. It just goes into the general state budget. The really fucked up thing is that local ISDs are intentionally underfunded because of this policy. Stick the liberals with the pollution, kill their public schools, take their money and spend it on vouchers for private religious schools. Oh, and gerrymander the fuck out of their districts so the suburbs and ranch dwellers have all the say, all the time.
  - pc86 3y ago
    This is a political advocacy organization, which may have positive goals, but is absolutely only going to be presenting one side of the argument and in a very "we're 100% good and the other side is 100% evil" kind of way. Not saying it's not worth looking into but it's like trying to get unbiased information on all political candidates in a race by going to one candidate's campaign website. It seems like the answer to "How is Texas funding rural schools with urban property taxes" is most likely "they're not, they're taking money from both schools for general budget appropriations."
    - isykt 3y ago
      Here’s a different source, the local NPR station, if you prefer. https://www.kut.org/tags/recapture https://www.kut.org/tags/recapture
- sbmercury 3y ago
  [dead]
- megaman821 3y ago
  Property taxes go into a general bucket and each school gets a set amount of money per student. It solves the problem of rural school districts not having enough funding but it goes too far there are no adjustments for how expensive an area is. A city like Austin send 51% of their school taxes to the state while also no having enough money to run their schools because things are more expensive in Austin and they deal with a lot more kids with learning difficulties. Texas has collected more in school tax than the schools were funded for in the past several years, so they just steal that money and put it in the general fund instead of giving the schools the money collected through school taxes.
  - pandaman 3y ago
    >A city like Austin send 51% of their school taxes to the state Citation is badly needed. I live in Austin and I don't pay any taxes to the state. My property taxes are going to the city, Travis county and multiple school districts.
    - megaman821 3y ago
      > More than half of the district’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year — $940 billion — will go to the state's recapture program, which takes money from property-wealthy school districts and distributes it to districts that don’t collect enough property tax revenue to cover costs. https://www.statesman.com/story/news/education/2023/06/26/austin-isds-deficit-budget-raises-pay-funds-special-education/70339804007/ https://www.statesman.com/story/news/education/2023/06/26/au...
      - pandaman 3y ago
        Thanks, there does seem to be a recapture program even though the article doesn't make much sense (940 million is not more than half of 2.1 billion budget for once).
        megaman821 3y ago
        That Statesman had a better article but I couldn't find it. It's 2.1 budget for the year: * 940 million goes to the state as recapture (1.8 billion was collected in property taxes) * There is a few hundred million in state and federal grants coming in * They are spending 52 million more than grants + leftover property taxes
jdross 3y ago
Austin's local gov't (in the state capital) brought this upon itself. Over 60% of Austin voted to end unregulated camping: the former progressive mayor of Austin said he would not enforce it, and that he would designate all parks as legal unhoused camping zones. This pissed off a lot of the local population, the governor and the senate. By trying to get around the local vote against allowing unregulated vagrancy from the houseless population he pushed the state senate to strip the city of those rights. The other pork just came along with it as a nice bonus "screw you"
- isykt 3y ago
  That’s some twisted logic. The Senate could have passed a statewide ban on unregulated camping, but instead decided to strip the city of its right to make most ordinances, including mandated water breaks for construction workers during a heat wave. The rollback of home rule —more than a century old — is a disproportionate, unreasonable response to a specific problem, the political equivalent of nuking an ant colony.
  - pandaman 3y ago
    Texas had passed such a ban (HB 1925) and Austin ignored that too.

by isykt 3y ago

pc86 3y ago

Do most states with income taxes fund schools from them? I've lived in several states but all have had both income and property taxes, and to my knowledge all of them funded schools exclusively from property taxes. In many of them there is literally a line item with the name of the school district. How is Texas funding rural schools with urban property taxes if they're in different districts?

isykt 3y ago
It’s called “recapture” and it’s worse than I described: https://recapturetexas.org/ https://recapturetexas.org/ The money doesn’t even go to education in rural areas, not completely. It just goes into the general state budget. The really fucked up thing is that local ISDs are intentionally underfunded because of this policy. Stick the liberals with the pollution, kill their public schools, take their money and spend it on vouchers for private religious schools. Oh, and gerrymander the fuck out of their districts so the suburbs and ranch dwellers have all the say, all the time.
- pc86 3y ago
  This is a political advocacy organization, which may have positive goals, but is absolutely only going to be presenting one side of the argument and in a very "we're 100% good and the other side is 100% evil" kind of way. Not saying it's not worth looking into but it's like trying to get unbiased information on all political candidates in a race by going to one candidate's campaign website. It seems like the answer to "How is Texas funding rural schools with urban property taxes" is most likely "they're not, they're taking money from both schools for general budget appropriations."
  - isykt 3y ago
    Here’s a different source, the local NPR station, if you prefer. https://www.kut.org/tags/recapture https://www.kut.org/tags/recapture
sbmercury 3y ago
[dead]
megaman821 3y ago
Property taxes go into a general bucket and each school gets a set amount of money per student. It solves the problem of rural school districts not having enough funding but it goes too far there are no adjustments for how expensive an area is. A city like Austin send 51% of their school taxes to the state while also no having enough money to run their schools because things are more expensive in Austin and they deal with a lot more kids with learning difficulties. Texas has collected more in school tax than the schools were funded for in the past several years, so they just steal that money and put it in the general fund instead of giving the schools the money collected through school taxes.
- pandaman 3y ago
  >A city like Austin send 51% of their school taxes to the state Citation is badly needed. I live in Austin and I don't pay any taxes to the state. My property taxes are going to the city, Travis county and multiple school districts.
  - megaman821 3y ago
    > More than half of the district’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year — $940 billion — will go to the state's recapture program, which takes money from property-wealthy school districts and distributes it to districts that don’t collect enough property tax revenue to cover costs. https://www.statesman.com/story/news/education/2023/06/26/austin-isds-deficit-budget-raises-pay-funds-special-education/70339804007/ https://www.statesman.com/story/news/education/2023/06/26/au...
    - pandaman 3y ago
      Thanks, there does seem to be a recapture program even though the article doesn't make much sense (940 million is not more than half of 2.1 billion budget for once).
      - megaman821 3y ago
        That Statesman had a better article but I couldn't find it. It's 2.1 budget for the year: * 940 million goes to the state as recapture (1.8 billion was collected in property taxes) * There is a few hundred million in state and federal grants coming in * They are spending 52 million more than grants + leftover property taxes

jdross 3y ago

Austin's local gov't (in the state capital) brought this upon itself. Over 60% of Austin voted to end unregulated camping: the former progressive mayor of Austin said he would not enforce it, and that he would designate all parks as legal unhoused camping zones. This pissed off a lot of the local population, the governor and the senate. By trying to get around the local vote against allowing unregulated vagrancy from the houseless population he pushed the state senate to strip the city of those rights. The other pork just came along with it as a nice bonus "screw you"

isykt 3y ago
That’s some twisted logic. The Senate could have passed a statewide ban on unregulated camping, but instead decided to strip the city of its right to make most ordinances, including mandated water breaks for construction workers during a heat wave. The rollback of home rule —more than a century old — is a disproportionate, unreasonable response to a specific problem, the political equivalent of nuking an ant colony.
- pandaman 3y ago
  Texas had passed such a ban (HB 1925) and Austin ignored that too.