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Posted
23 hours ago, Deej said:

If you're in Austin, that money would just go somewhere else, so why bother? 

I would be OK with more money for schools if the schools actually got the money, and if schools were free to raise more money, with voter approval, to pay teachers what they think they are worth.  I'm OK with Austin ISD's school bond money and I wish they would ask for more, as I think the 2022 bond is underfunded.  All of the bond money stays in the district.

It is bullshit that I pay "property tax", which is labelled as "school tax", which is actually "money to be paid to the state for education", which may become "money to put razor wire in the Rio Grande".  It should be illegal to collect a tax for one purpose and confiscate it for some other purpose.  If the state wants Robin Hood money or private school tuition or more razor wire, they should do it via a state-wide tax.

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Posted
9 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

I would be OK with more money for schools if the schools actually got the money, and if schools were free to raise more money, with voter approval, to pay teachers what they think they are worth.  I'm OK with Austin ISD's school bond money and I wish they would ask for more, as I think the 2022 bond is underfunded.  All of the bond money stays in the district.

It is bullshit that I pay "property tax", which is labelled as "school tax", which is actually "money to be paid to the state for education", which may become "money to put razor wire in the Rio Grande".  It should be illegal to collect a tax for one purpose and confiscate it for some other purpose.  If the state wants Robin Hood money or private school tuition or more razor wire, they should do it via a state-wide tax.

The AISD bonds that we keep funding are complete BS.  They collect X amount of dollars, of which 30% might go to AISD, while the rest is recaptured for school district golf courses and water parks in the valley, or Football Stadiums that house 5x the ISD population and outdo Rice and Houston's stadiums.

Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, PvilleStang said:

The AISD bonds that we keep funding are complete BS.  They collect X amount of dollars, of which 30% might go to AISD, while the rest is recaptured for school district golf courses and water parks in the valley, or Football Stadiums that house 5x the ISD population and outdo Rice and Houston's stadiums.

It's important to distinguish between bond money and money for school operations.

Last year, Austin ISD passed Prop A, which was money for school operations.  By law, they can tax up to nine copper pennies.  The pennies are called "copper" because they are subject to recapture.  So in this case, you are correct, we had an election to raise our taxes. Austin ISD got $40 million per year out of the deal and the state got $130 million per year.  It was not a bond election.

The money for school operations part is maxed out.  The district cannot raise taxes any more for this portion.  And, it is subject to "compression", which means that the rate gets reduced so that the tax money raised cannot go up by more than 2.5% per year.

The money for bonds is different.  When you vote for a bond, you are giving permission for the school district to borrow the amount of the bond.  In 2022, Austin voters gave permission for the district to borrow about $2.4 billion dollars and use the money to improve schools.  The district went through years of planning after the election and started to borrow the money, and now projects are under way.  Each year, the district raises tax money to pay back the bonds, but like a mortgage they don't pay it back all in one year.  Your bond tax dollars go to interest and principal on the loan, just like on your house.

Most importantly, NONE of the bond money is sent to the state for recapture.

This is one way that poorer school districts get those nice football stadiums.  We send part of our "school operations" money to the state, and the state sends part of that to the poorer district.  That district does not have to raise as much money for school operations.  So they turn around and crank up their tax for "bond projects", which turns out to be the super nice football stadium.

I'm not against those districts building decent facilities, but something is wrong when the "rich" district has crapola facilities and the "poor" district has a Jumbotron.

Edited by Texas Jeff
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Posted
The AISD bonds that we keep funding are complete BS.  They collect X amount of dollars, of which 30% might go to AISD, while the rest is recaptured for school district golf courses and water parks in the valley, or Football Stadiums that house 5x the ISD population and outdo Rice and Houston's stadiums.

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