House Education Chairman Jimmie Don Aycock is calling for a discussion of school finance. I applaud his efforts to try to fix the unfair and inequitable Robin Hood tax scheme which transfers property taxes from some school districts to others. It results in double taxation of property for many Texas property owners. Currently, you have $1.1 billion in higher property taxes being transferred from so-called property-rich districts to property-poor districts. Eliminate that property tax transfer and replace it with a one-quarter of one percent sales tax designated to go to the property-poor districts. This is revenue neutral and gets additional state funding to property-poor districts equivalent to what they are getting now. It ends the double taxation of property that is the Robin Hood solution while ensuring that poorer districts have adequate funding. I believe, if this were passed, the Texas Supreme Court would accept as Constitutional and a broad-based group of educators would be supportive. As always, the devil is in the details. But, this is a project that deserves the heavy lifting required to get school finance fixed. We have shown what can be done with the passage of HB 5 when various groups work together. It can happen here as well.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 16:49:40 +0000
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