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In Support of the School Tax Increase

August 27, 2008

Let me say one thing first. I don’t like taxes. I don’t like paying them and I don’t like it when governments raise them. That said, I support the school district’s proposed 13 cent tax increase.

The school board will seek a 13 cent tax increase in October. This increase would bring them up to an M&O tax rate of $1.17 per $100 valuation. That’s the maximum that districts can charge.

I think most people who oppose tax rate increases do so for two reasons.

First, the perception is that government budgets are bloated and the way to solve funding problems is cut the fat.

Second, people feel like the need for more revenue was caused by poor decisions in the past and that a tax increase would encourage more poor decisions.

I won’t rehash the issues that gave rise to the tax rate increase. You can read my previous articles here and here.

In short, the Legislature lowered the maximum M&O tax rate from $1.50 to $1.00. School Districts could apply for the “golden pennies” and get a rate of $1.04. This is the first year the new law allows schools to raise taxes, but the increase cannot go above $1.17. Even so, that’s roughly a 20% cut in revenue from the pre-reform rules.

And the state has not replaced that funding as promised.

The bottom line is that the immediacy for additional revenue was caused by the Texas Legislature taking a large portion of the district’s revenue and not returning the money to the district through state funding.

The harder issue is the second reason people are skeptical of new taxes. Some may feel that past decisions have caused the need for an increase. They point to the recent $1.2 million dollars expense to fix the football field.

Here’s the background on that decision. The district used a contractor in 2006 that wasn’t bonded. That contractor committed some of the most egregious fraud I have ever seen. When it was discovered that the district had been duped, the contractor was out of business and the district was left holding the bag.

I suppose in retrospect its easy to say the district should have chosen a different contractor in 2006. But you have to understand the mindset of school districts in Texas. They fight for pennies so they can educate students. And when faced with the need for fixing the field in 2006, they chose the contractor with the lowest bid.

All that said, the football field is not the reason our district is faced with a bleak financial outlook without the tax increase.

So, the need for additional revenue is not the result of a bloated budget; nor is it the result of bad decisions. Rather, the need was caused by something totally outside their control.

What Texas needs is real education reform. It used to be that the legislature funded 70% or more of public education. Today, in Cedar Hill at least, the state funds 32%. The Legislature keeps putting more and more tax burden on the backs of property owners.

The recent efforts to reform property taxes address the symptom but not the problem.

At the end of this debate, it is the children who are most affected. Libraries without enough books, classrooms with out-dated technology, teachers who leave Cedar Hill for higher salaries, all effect the quality of education in Cedar Hill.

I’ve said often that our city with flourish or fail based on our schools. Schools transcend businesses, economic development, workforce, labor market, and quality of life. If parents can’t be confident in Cedar Hill schools, they will go elsewhere. We can’t afford that.

This tax increase is not the answer to all the problems, but it is a response to a reality.

That’s why I support the tax increase.

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