HISD, which has been laying the groundwork to raise taxes for some time now, employed a familiar tactic for dropping bad news earlier today: the Friday 4pm press release.
The important information is as follows (full press release at the bottom of the post, since it is not to be found on the HISD website at the moment):
The HISD Board of Education will consider adopting a four cent property tax rate increase on Oct. 10.
[snip]
A public hearing on the proposed tax rate begins at 5 p.m. on Thursday, October 10, 2013 in the board auditorium of the Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center (4400 West 18th St., 77092). The Board of Education is expected to vote on the tax rate immediately following the public hearing.
The fix would seem to be in.
HISD tax increase follows Broad Prize announcement
The HISD tax-increase announcement follows good news from the district earlier in the week: The announcement that HISD had received its second Broad Prize.
Not everyone was impressed with the news, however. Indeed, HISD’s selection led Andy Smarick of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation to call on the Broad Foundation to end the prize altogether. His analysis is worth reading in full, but here’s a sampling:
I had recently dug through old city-level NAEP results. They were all terribly depressing.
But Houston’s stopped me cold.
Somehow it had won the 2002 Broad Prize (for supposed urban district excellence) despite dreadfully low performance. Worse, its scores are virtually unchanged nearly a decade later.
[snip]
In Houston and San Diego, about one in ten African American eighth graders can read proficiently. Their low-income students do only the smallest bit better.
[snip]
This is what earns you national recognition? This is what “reducing achievement gaps among low-income and minority students” looks like?
Even worse — this sort of performance is apparently what earns Houston-area property owners a tax increase!
OTHERS: HISD to seek 4-cent tax rate increase – K-12 Zone/chron.com.
* * *
HISD PRESS RELEASE
Proposal Would Keep HISD Tax Rate Lowest Among 24 Districts in Harris County
Homeowners will continue receiving rare optional tax break
September 27, 2013 – The HISD Board of Education will consider adopting a four cent property tax rate increase on Oct. 10. This would represent the first such rate increase since 2001. The proposed property tax rate of $1.1967 per $100 taxable value is nearly 23 cents less than the average Harris County school district – maintaining HISD’s position as having the lowest rate of any district in the region.
In addition to having the lowest tax rate in the county, HISD is among just eight county school districts that grant homeowners an additional 20 percent homestead exemption. As a result, the owner of a $200,000 home in HISD pays hundreds less in taxes than the owner of a home with the same value elsewhere in Harris County.
Harris County school districts with higher tax rates in 2012 than HISD’s proposed 2013 tax rate include: Aldine, Alief, Channelview, Clear Creek, Crosby, Cypress-Fairbanks, Dayton, Deer Park, Galena Park, Goose Creek, Huffman, Humble, Katy, Klein, La Porte, New Caney, Pasadena, Pearland, Sheldon, Spring, Spring Branch, Stafford, and Tomball.
HISD spends less on administrative costs than most other large Texas school districts – having an administrative cost ratio of 4.61 percent, which is less than those reported for Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio, just to name a few.
The rate change proposal largely results from cuts to public education funding that the Texas Legislature imposed in 2011, which cost Houston schools $75 million in 2011 and a total of $122 million in 2012. In the first year of those cuts, HISD balanced the budget by cutting expenses, resulting in layoffs in central administration and in schools.
In 2012, rather than imposing further cuts on schools, the HISD Board of Education agreed to address the remaining deficit though the use of one-time federal money, and by dipping into savings. The district also reduced the amount of general fund money that is normally transferred to the district’s debt service fund to help repay loans at a faster rate than is required.
A public hearing on the proposed tax rate begins at 5 p.m. on Thursday, October 10, 2013 in the board auditorium of the Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center (4400 West 18th St., 77092). The Board of Education is expected to vote on the tax rate immediately following the public hearing.
The board is scheduled to receive status updates on a number of projects and vote on several programs, contracts, and grants. The board meeting will be carried live on HISD’s website and on the HISD Channel, which can be found on Comcast Channel 18 or AT&T Channel 99.
I’m not really opposed to this increase, assuming it is spent replacing funds the idiots in Austin should have appropriated. I’ve seen the impact the budget cuts have had at my son’s school, and the principal there is a wizard at making the budget work. I’ve been through the HISD budget, and there’s not really anything left to cut without making education outcomes worse. HISD isn’t wasting money on sports palaces, unlike Katy and CyFair, and isn’t busing every student, like SBISD (unless that’s stopped).