Although temporarily shouted down by the clamor over proposed congressional redistricting, the Senate’s plan to “end Robin Hood” and reform public-school finance is making plenty of legislative and political waves. Under the plan proposed by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and passed to the House Tuesday with the support of the entire Senate, school property taxes would be radically reduced (although not quite “by half” as the headlines have it) and replaced by new funds (estimated at $8 billion a year) generated by raising the state sales tax and extending it to many currently untaxed services. The Senate substituted its bill for HB 5 — the Kent Grusendorf bill that would magically add “new” money (slashed from health and human services) to schools with the promise of replacing the recapture system, oh, some time in the next two years. Now a conference committee will presumably work out the “differences” in the two bills, but at the moment a standoff appears more likely.
Gov. Rick Perry and House Speaker Tom Craddick are publicly unhappy with the Senate proposal — both want to wait for a special session on school finance, and Craddick announced he wouldn’t ask the House to act “with a gun to its head.” But the Senate strategy may require the House effectively to vote against a property tax cut — the sort of dilemma that can cause Texas politicians’ heads to explode.
The response of school advocates has been mixed: The bill would pump more state money into schools and roughly maintain current equity, but it would do so by using a tax that’s even more regressive than property taxes; in addition, sales tax collections have been declining in Texas for some time. While the diversionary shell game proceeds at the Capitol, school districts (including Austin ISD) are preparing for even more radical cuts to their budgets, as their revenues continue to fall and the Legislature has more important things to do — like mandating the Pledge of Allegiance, “virtues” instruction, and a moment of silence for all students. The students can presumably spend the time considering where they rank on lawmakers’ priority lists.
This article appears in May 9 • 2003.
