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Texas Jeff

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Everything posted by Texas Jeff

  1. Sounds difficult…
  2. The Patton / Small community is very important to the Austin High community. Those parents always showed up. The Travis Country community was also a huge part of O. Henry and Austin High. I get that they are trying to fill up Crockett and change the demographics to balance enrollment, but it seems crazy to deliberately reduce the population at Small and Austin High, schools that are mostly full today. They are trying to keep all of the high schools open by spreading the kids around ... which may lower utilization at Small and Austin High ... and again what was the point of this exercise?
  3. I really hope it was these guys:
  4. Almost 100 years ago ...
  5. When I saw Manning slide live, I thought maybe he could have made it. After watching the replay, I agree with you, just slide. Manning slid around 4:42. OU burned two timeouts and the clock ran down to 2:59 before the field goal attempt. Had Texas been able to get another first down, they could have taken it down to maybe a smidge over a minute.
  6. I'm a product of Carrollton/Farmers Branch ISD. We have a long history of being doormats for surrounding schools. We had a year where crosstown rivals winless Newman Smith played winless R. L. Turner, which should have produced a win for somebody. They tied. We peaked when we produced Vanilla Ice.
  7. What's the deal with the tiny press box? 😀
  8. Here's links to the board information session. There are two videos, evidently there were technical problems at the end of the first one and they broke it into two chunks: Public comment and district presentation, about 2.5 hours: Board discussion, about two hours:
  9. I will be voting no. The city proposed a 20% tax rate increase for Project Connect with pictures of a downtown tunnel and a stop at the airport. They got the money and almost immediately cancelled the tunnel and the airport stop. The city is proposing this 20% tax rate increase now. The PAC supporting the city is claiming that Greg Abbott and Donald Trump have made cuts to the city budget and this is to restore those cuts. Which is bullshit and the city and PAC know it. The mayor and all but one of the city council members are supporting this argument. This is a choice between a 3.5% raise in taxes and an 8% raise in taxes. The additional revenue isn't earmarked for anything. It's more money for the stuff the city spends money on, a large portion of which is police, fire, EMS, the homeless and salads. If you support higher spending on city services and your number is 8%, then you should vote for this. If you are OK with the 3.5% number, you should vote against. I would like to see more honesty from our city before I go for the higher number, and I'm not seeing that. Most people aren't looking at an 8% raise this year, which means that a larger portion of their income will go towards city taxes, which makes it tougher to live in Austin. I can't support that.
  10. BTW, full disclosure... The tax rate is going up 10% or 20%, but that translates into an actual city tax increase of about 3.5% (if it fails) or 8% (if it passes)
  11. none of it is going to schools.
  12. The City of Austin is proposing to raise your city property taxes via Prop Q. If this passes, the city tax rate will rise by 10 cents, from 47.76 cents to 57.40 cents, a 20% increase in the tax rate. If this fails, the city tax rate will rise by only 5 cents, from 47.76 cents to 52.40 cents, a mere 10% increase in the tax rate. 10 cents of tax rate translates to $100 per year for every $100,000 of your home's taxable value. What saith the Surl? Do you plan to vote and if so, are you for or against? Early voting runs Oct 20-31. Voting day is Nov 4th. This is an off-year election so turnout will be tiny.
  13. A little off topic, but this Blue Devils timpanist is fantastic. Check out the foot cam in the lower right...
  14. Yes. Golden pennies are capped at 8. Copper pennies are capped at 9.
  15. I was curious about what was going on there with the tax rate so I looked it up. School finance can break your brain. Each district has a tax rate consisting of a "Tier 1" base rate that is set by the state, an optional number of "golden" pennies", an optional number of "copper" pennies, and a rate to pay off bond debt. The base rate and the copper pennies are subject to recapture. The golden pennes and the bond money are not. Tax rates represent how many dollars of tax you pay per $100 of your property's taxable value. Grapevine Colleyville 2024: Base Rate: 0.6569 Golden Pennies: 0.08 Copper Pennies: 0 Bond Debt: 0.1864 2024 tax rate: 0.9233 Grapevine Colleyville 2025: Base Rate: 0.6322 Golden Pennies: 0.08 Copper Pennies: 0 Bond Debt: 0.1564 2025 tax rate: 0.8686 So GCISD's rate dropped because the state compressed their tax rates and the district refinanced their debt. Compression generally happens when the property tax base goes up by more than 2.5% per year. Now let's do Austin ISD: Austin ISD 2024: Base Rate: 0.6575 Golden Pennies: 0.08 Copper Pennies: 0.09 Bond Debt: 0.1230 2024 tax rate: 0.9505 Austin ISD 2025: Base Rate: 0.6322 Golden Pennies: 0.08 Copper Pennies: 0.09 Bond Debt: 0.1230 2025 tax rate: 0.9233 Grapevine-Colleyville and Austin both have the same base rate for 2025. This is not an accident. This is the highest base rate allowed by the state for this year. Austin ISD has a higher overall tax rate because they use their copper pennies, although this is partially offset by a lower rate for bond spending. These are all tax rates, not tax amounts. You have to multiply the tax rate by the taxable value of your property, and divide by 100, to get the actual amount you pay.
  16. Those folks were chosen to blend in with the natives:
  17. The board information session is Thursday Oct 9 at 6pm. You can attend in person or watch it on YouTube.
  18. I was curious to know the collective impact of these consolidations and the recent bond programs on the schools of East Austin. So I looked it up. I am defining "East Austin" here as north of the river and east of 35. I did not count LASA as an East Austin school since it's a magnet. Here's what it would look like after the 2022 bond program is complete and if these consolidations go ahead as proposed: Elementaries: * 6 will be brand new as part of the 2017/2022 bonds (Harris, Andrews, Norman-Sims, Govalle, Sanchez, Pecan Springs) * 2 have been built since 2000 (Overton, Pickle) * 5 was built prior to 2000 (Blanton, Ortega, Zavala, Blackshear, Campbell) Middle Schools: * 2 will be brand new as part of the 2017/2022 bonds (Sadler Means, Marshall) * 1 has been built since 2000 (Gus Garcia) * 1 was built prior to 2000 (Kealing) High Schools: * 1 is brand new as part of the 2017 bond (Eastside) * 2 others (Northeast, LBJ) received some money in 2017 and a large investment in 2022, with more work still to be done. The three high schools received a total of $347 million in bond money in 2017 and 2022 combined. Today, they collectively enroll about the same number of students as Bowie.
  19. Well, lots of things. A state property tax or state sales tax could generate money, and that money could replace the funding from Robin Hood, for example. Or we could legalize drugs and tax them. Basically anything that generates funds that end up in the state general fund. Right now, the state is not obligated to spend the recapture money on education. They collect the money and it goes into a general fund. And then they send supplemental money to districts that need it out of the general fund. It is not a direct transfer of funds from one district to another.
  20. I was surprised, looking at the maps, that more of Bryker Woods was not absorbed into Casis. The married student housing along Lake Austin Blvd has historically been part to Mathews, to combine it with the married student housing east of Mopac. In the proposed maps, the housing along LAB is now assigned to Casis and the part east of Mopac is still Mathews. Which splits that community. However, UT has started to move this housing to east campus near Disch-Falk, and those kids will probably end up at Campbell long term. I *think* there is some room at Casis to put Bryker Woods kids at Casis. I am surprised they didn't keep the married students together at Mathews and move the Bryker Woods kids to Casis. I suspect the BW families would have preferred Casis to Mathews, but that is just my guess. Also, Mathews 6th grade is proposed to end. I think BW lost their 6th a few years ago. Honestly getting rid of 6th in the Austin High / O. Henry vertical will help O. Henry long term.
  21. Currently projected to be $715 million for FY 2025-2026 ... aka way too much but lower than in past years. It is dropping because of tax compression ... basically the school district is limited in how they can raise your taxes to 2.5 percent per year. Which is lowering local taxes (or at least stopping them from going up so fast) and gradually lowering the Robin Hood payment.
  22. Austin ISD is about to go through a consolidation and closure process. I thought I would start a new topic to help focus discussion for those affected. Until now, the process has been discussing goals and such in a generic sense. Today, it gets specific with a plan to close certain schools and consolidate others. This will be debated and revised from now until about Thanksgiving, when the board is scheduled to vote on the final plan. Here's a starting spot to learn about the consolidation effort: https://www.austinisd.org/consolidate The initial proposal is scheduled to be released today.
  23. My takeaway after watching parts of both Hegseth and Trump's speeches on C-Span. I suspect this was an event to collect photos and video of Hegseth looking tough and in charge, to be used when he runs for a higher office like Senator or President. The resemblance to the movie "Patton" was obvious. He was well rehearsed and walked around the stage, in contrast to Trump who was locked in to the teleprompter. It was crazy stuff, which I think I can summarize by saying "Lose weight you morons" and "In Christ's name, I plan to blow the crap out of somebody". A lot of "This is now the Department of War, I am the War Secretary, which means ... war ... to keep the peace." Orwellian stuff. Trump makes almost the same speech no mater who his is talking to. I'm sure he is pissed that he had to talk in silence. His act loses a lot when there is zero crowd reaction. He kept it up even at the end, where he was clapping for himself and pointing at folks in the crowd like it was a rally, but instead of "YMCA" blasting there was nothing. I think Hegseth works this into a stump speech about how he cleaned up the military, got everyone in shape, got rid of woke stuff, blew up some stuff ... and he'll have the images of the event to back him up on Fox while he's talking about what he did as SecDef. The parts about using the military domestically were obviously the most concerning, but I have faith in our military. I don't see them going along with it. If I am wrong we are screwed.
  24. The transfers and wait for the bus and walking from the stop to the destination kill the thing. Yesterday, I had to drop a car off in West Campus and get home some other way, a distance of about 2 miles. I had three options: * Take CapMetro, about 40 minutes for a cost of $1.25 for me and about $6-$12 for the taxpayer. * Walk, also 40 minutes and free but a bit sweaty. * Uber, about 10 minutes for $6, which was a discount from their normal price of about $10. So I picked Uber and got matched with a Waymo. A robot drove me home in an electric Jaguar with nice leather seats and cold A/C. Cap Metro's revenue is $600 million a year and for that they provide 26 million rides per year. That is an average of $23 per ride. They do provide paratransit which is expensive and needed, but even if you back that out they spend a lot of money per rider. They employ 22 vice-presidents and have their own police department. As rideshare scales, particularly driverless rideshare, we should reconsider Cap Metro's operating model versus just supplementing rideshare for lower income folks. I think they should keep their paratransit services and their main corridor routes like the 801 and 803, but everything else should go rideshare.
  25. Brilyn Hollyhand? Who is naming this people?
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