Texas Jeff
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Everything posted by Texas Jeff
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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)
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none of it is going to schools.
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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.
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A little off topic, but this Blue Devils timpanist is fantastic. Check out the foot cam in the lower right...
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The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Yes. Golden pennies are capped at 8. Copper pennies are capped at 9. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
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. -
Those folks were chosen to blend in with the natives:
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The board information session is Thursday Oct 9 at 6pm. You can attend in person or watch it on YouTube.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Brilyn Hollyhand? Who is naming this people?
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Last week someone almost got canceled for saying: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” This week ... totally different response from the MAGA gang.
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Fidelity Freedom funds are a "life path" or "target date" fund based a target retirement date. In this case the chosen date is 2045. Target date funds tend to invest in both US and international funds in about a 60/40 or 70/30 mix, with some bonds. As the retirement date approaches, they sell stocks and buy bonds to reduce risk. The S&P 500 funds are US stocks, however these big US companies do get revenues from both US and international sources. Think about US companies with a worldwide impact like Exxon and Microsoft. In years where the S&P 500 performance dominates, the S&P 500 fund is going to do better than the target date funds. In years where international performance is better than US, the target date fund is going to be better. International funds have done well in 2025, but for the years leading up to 2025 the S&P funds outdid the international funds, as your data shows.
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How did Ted get there so fast?
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The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
This summer they were talking about how many seats they would have to remove to get to 80/85/90 percent full. And how they wanted to do this once. I suspect, given AISD's history, that the admin will target 85% full and the community will talk them down to 80%. IMHO, they should be going for 90% full and wait and see what happens with demographics. They are projected to lose another 10% over the next ten years. If they end up at 80% full and lose 10%, they'll be back at 72% full in 10 years. Going for 90% now would leave them around 81% full in 10 years, when they will likely have to do this over again. Getting to 90% would save a lot of money over 10 years vs 80% or lower. If the district surprises and adds population, they could rebuild some campuses to add capacity. They're never getting the land back once they sell. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Bryker Woods is an interesting choice. It is a small school in poor condition but the surrounding schools are mostly full or overcrowded according to the rubric they released. Perhaps they are serious about limiting transfers to the West Austin elementaries, which might free up enough space to absorb the local population. Maplewood will probably be merged into Campbell. One of the trustees has mentioned this idea several times in board meetings. Fun fact: Bedichek was a filming location for "Dazed and Confused". IMHO, it looked old and out of date 30 years ago. -
Kimmel's comments that got his show off the air -- pretty normal monologue stuff:
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The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Current Austin ISD attendance area boundaries, in case anyone is interested: https://www.austinisd.org/modules/custom/schools/maps/schools.html -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Thanks for spreading the word, those that are affected need to know about this. However, one small correction. The plan is being uploaded in early October, meaning that it will be available online, probably via BoardDocs or on the school consolidation page. The folks working on the plan will present it to the board at the board info session on Oct 9th. The board is scheduled to vote on the final plan during their November 20th voting meeting. So there is some time for tweaks, but I suspect the board has known the basic plan for a while. You may have more recent info from the Zoom call than Austin ISD has published on their consolidation page. They have to consolidate schools to remain financially viable. They have burned through their savings and they are only able to reduce their deficit to where it is for this year by selling school properties for one-time cash. The district said they have the same enrollment now as they did in the mid-1990s, but they are operating twenty more schools now than they did then. The latest demographic report shows them losing 10% more of their students over the next ten years, then perhaps flatting out. There are benefits to consolidation, although it's painful for folks to experience it and it's always unpopular. -
It was covered upthread, but I'll add a video here. He ran across the roof to a different spot where there was no staircase. Perhaps he felt it was out of view. It was so soon after the shooting that he probably could have gone back to the staircase and walked away. He dropped down to the ground while apparently carrying a bag, appeared to hurt his leg a bit on the fall, and limped away.
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