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Texas Jeff

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Everything posted by Texas Jeff

  1. Hope that this guy is charged both for the murder threat and interfering with a person legally fishing. And he’s doxxed and treated like the POS that he is. What are you in for? Threating to murder someone... Wow. Also I prevented a minor from fishing...
  2. Almost not at all, and by that I mean you still have to play Westlake, Drip and LT. Best of luck. Bowie's boundary has some tiny changes to cede a few streets to Crockett and add a few streets from Akins, but other than that it's unchanged: https://www.austinisd.org/sites/default/files/dept/school-improvement/docs/consolidations/BowieHS_AISD-Draft-Consol-DW-Boundaries-10.3.2025-ada.pdf There are some changes to the middle schools that feed Bowie.
  3. Also where would you put all of your crap? πŸ™‚ My kids have been off to college for a while and I am still opening closets, panicking, and then slowly closing them. Our neighborhood was built in the 1940s and I think my kids were part of maybe the 3rd wave of kids to live here. The fourth is ramping up. We had lots of kids on our street when we moved here. Then teens and then zero. Now we are back to strollers.
  4. One more point on this: fewer kids are being born in Austin ISD and more of those kids are gone by kindergarten. The number of births in Austin ISD has steadily dropped from 11,300 in 2006 to 9,100 in 2022. And the percentage of kids that are still in AISD by kindergarten has dropped from 68% in 2006 to 55% in 2022. Both trends reduce the number of kids in the district. Unless the district makes up for this shortfall by importing kids from elsewhere, enrollment will drop and will continue to drop, regardless of the quality of the education, the buildings, whatever. Westlake is projected to drop too, as is Vandegrift. Lake Travis is building a second high school and is having some second thoughts about being able to fill it. We are headed into an era where we need fewer schools or smaller schools. They can still be great schools, but the days of measuring a district by the growth in the number of students are ending.
  5. The 2023-24 demographic report had some information on losses to area charter schools and other districts. It shows a net loss of 868 students from SY 2017/18 to SY 2022/23. Over that same period, district enrollment fell by 8266 students. Here's a list of area school districts and charter schools that receive students from AISD (transfers out of the district or to charters): And a list of area districts that send students to AISD (transfers in to the district):
  6. You're not wrong. Remember Prop A from last year? Austin voters voted to voluntarily raise their own school property taxes to cover "copper" pennies. If those "copper" pennies were simply changed to be "golden" pennies, meaning no recapture, the budget would balance with room to spare. It would mean $130 million in new funding for the district per year, and it would not affect the "original" recapture payment at all. That would still go to the state. Such an easy fix and yet here we are ...
  7. He mentioned Crabtree. Too soon, man, too soon...
  8. Sounds difficult…
  9. 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?
  10. Almost 100 years ago ...
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. What's the deal with the tiny press box? πŸ˜€
  14. 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:
  15. 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.
  16. 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)
  17. none of it is going to schools.
  18. 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.
  19. A little off topic, but this Blue Devils timpanist is fantastic. Check out the foot cam in the lower right...
  20. Yes. Golden pennies are capped at 8. Copper pennies are capped at 9.
  21. 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.
  22. Those folks were chosen to blend in with the natives:
  23. The board information session is Thursday Oct 9 at 6pm. You can attend in person or watch it on YouTube.
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