"We're being squeezed, y'all. DSISD has a spending problem and the Governor and Texas Legislature want to appear to be cutting spending when they're actually just passing the buck to Texas property owners." -- Stop Hays Tax Increase website
Note: There will be 10 proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution for voters to consider on the Nov. 8 2011 election ballot. Check this link for an explanation of each amendment from the Secretary of State. Also on the ballot will be the two tax measures for the DSISD, two San Marcos City Council races, Places 3 & 4, and a proposed sales and use tax increase for the Hays County Emergency Services District No. 8 (Buda). Early voting begins on Oct. 24. Check the Hays County website, elections office, for the sample ballot and early voting dates, times and places.
Send your comments and questions to roundup.editor@gmail.com, to The Committee to Stop Hays Tax Increase at this link, http://www.stopthehaystaxincrease.com/contact/, or click on the "comments" at the bottom of the story
By Bob Ochoa
Editor
If you are a taxpayer upset by seemingly nonstop property tax increases, a political action committee recently formed in Dripping Springs – The Committee to Stop Hays Tax Increase (website) – may be the place to go for some action.
Organizers say they are a grassroots effort by people who are tired of paying more than their fair share of taxes. "The only power we really have is our vote," says the PAC's website. "Texas is among the 3 highest property tax states in the USA. And, if you're a Hays County property owner, you're among the top taxed in Texas."
The committee is taking direct aim at a measure that will be on the Nov. 8 2011 election ballot proposing a steep increase in the school tax rate. Voters are being urged to vote No.
Dripping Springs ISD board of trustees in August voted to place two measures on the Nov. 8 ballot. The first asks voters to consider a 13-cent increase in the property tax rate, from the current $1.04 per hundred valuation to $1.17 – the highest allowable under state law. If approved, owners of an average valued property would pay $340 more in annual taxes.
The second item asks voters to consider the issuance of up to $3.6 million in school building bonds to refinance previously issued maintenance tax obligations from the general fund and move the $400,000 annual payments from the general fund to the debt service fund. The move is not expected to increase the debt service tax rate, according to a school district press release.
In a June 17 press release, Dripping school officials had said the tax rate would remain unchanged ($1.04 per hundred) after absorbing $2.5 million in reductions in the 2011-12 budget, most or all of it resulting from cuts in state funding. The district anticipates an additional $3.1 million reduction in state funding for the 2012-13 school year.
The school board surprised many with its announcement two months later on Aug. 19 that it would place a 13-cent tax rate increase measure on the November ballot. (Local tax trivia question: Has an increase of that magnitude ever been proposed in Hays County's history?)
"That was the trigger . . . that the DSISD folks went for the maximum increase allowable," the PAC's founder, Val Asensio, said in an email to the RoundUp. "Then, Rick Perry, love him or hate him, said in one of the debates "Local school districts are absorbing the cuts [to education]." Not so much. They're passing the bill on to property owners. The goal is to make area residents aware of what's on the ballot. They'll decide if it matters or not."
If you think you haven't reached your limit in taxes, consider a table published in Forbes magazine in January of 2009, listing the top ranked taxed counties in the U.S. Hays County was ranked in the top 100, based on homeowner median income and taxes as a percentage of income.
26 comments:
If stupid voters continue to vote for tax increases via road and school bonds and other measures they deserve to get taxed above their income means and eventually out of their homes.
My favorite is when the local elected commissioners and school officials say that "it's only a few dollars per homeowner per year."
They keep on adding "little bits" to our taxes until it evolves into increased home foreclosures.
Okay, I anticipate all the arguments against what I am about to to (half jokingly) propose: I know we need an educated public; it's good for ALL of us -- not just for parents -- if children are educated. BUT....
Maybe taxes for education should be
a "consumption" sort of tax -- like a sales tax. You know, you pay
taxes only on what you buy (in this case, an education for your
child or children). If you want
to churn out several rugrats, that's your prerogative, but it's also your RESPONSIBILITY to bear more/most of the cost of educating
the child.
Let's say every adult --not just
homeowners -- pays a certain fixed fee into a fund for local education. THEN the adults who are parents of school-age children pay
more per child into the fund, as long as they have any children in
school. We could even abolish the
state and federal depts. of education. Let all education be local. If sports are the most important thing to a community, it
can spend money on astroturf; if literacy is more important, maybe more on library books.
But let the parents who bring forth
overpopulation pay more of the cost
of educating their own kids.
Really, there should be a taxpayer revolt all over Hays County (and Texas) about our means of funding education. It's thrown onto the backs of homeowners. (And don't gimme that nonsense about how renters indirectly pay property taxes, too, through their landlords. I've BEEN a landlord, and the reason there is a shortage of (non-commercial) rental property is that landlords can't keep up with the tax increases.)
Most of us survived schools that were much less rigged with bells and whistles than the palaces our
kids frequent now. Cut out all the unnecessary frills. Tell the school district it has a certain amount of money, and the schools will be responsible buy for paying the teachers a decent salary. Swimming pools, pressboxes, soccer teams are not necessary for learning to read and write. If parents want their little darlings to have a chance at lacrosse, they can organzize the teams, coach them, and pay for taking the teams to compete wherever there are other jughead parents who want to do the same.
I am a property owner and a tax payer. I am squeezed from ALL directions. There has to be a better way to pay for all these expensive schools. Any way except higher property taxes! They say you get what you pay for. I don't think I'm getting close to what I'm paying in to the school system. I agree that people that want expensive programs outside of a child's basic education should pay for it out of their own pockets. This is just insane. Most kids aren't even prepared to go to college after highschool anymore. Can't write a decent research paper. Why am I having to pay all this money for a second rate product.
The product of public education is the result of too many years of liberal nonsense that adds crap for education making it more "touch-feely" than meat-and-potato education. Hell the kids need to know how to read, write, and do their 'rithmetic. What else besides? Well, if they can do that, the rest comes along. But if we can't do the three basics right, what the hell?
The last anonymous wants to blame the liberals! Show me one liberal school board in Hays County. How about looking at their Football programs and how each district uses 1 class period each day for sports practice. When I went to public school we only practiced after school it was called extra curricular activity. And the school day was for class room only.And what about all the illegal immigrant children using our system and paying nothing into it? Maybe we need to address all the issues. Kick
Jason Isaac voted for the school cuts and proudly said the legislature had balanced the state budget without raising taxes. What is he telling his Dripping constituents now??? Probably anything to stay in office long enough to qualify for his fat state pension. Just like the rest of them. What a crock.
School boards need to stop hiring former jocks as principals and superintendents. And we voters need to VOTE OUT school board members and lawmakers until we get a better basic education for the kids and fairer funding system.
Was there really a cut in public education funding? From what I remember, the 2012-2013 recommendation was flat with the 2010-2011 anticipated spending level. (A $3 billion reduction in federal funding was offset by a $3 billion increase from the state)
Can someone tell me if I am wrong?
Please do correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe school systems anywhere outside of North America provide ANY of the (what used to be called) extra-curricular activities. Education in those places isn't quite the horrendous cost it is to taxpayers in the U.S.
In Europe, sports are coached outside of the school day (and by unpaid volutneers and/or faculty members). I don't believe they pay for busses to take players to non-local events. No student -- sport or honor society -- gets a big letter jacket. Pep rallies aren't held on instruction time. Athletes take a full course of classes.
In short, European students rank higher in almost any subject than do North Americans, and so why don't we take a cue from them and cut out all the distractions and expenses of non-curriculum activities? They aren't the mission of education, anyhow.
Anonymous who asked about cut in education funding: The Legislature cut $4 billion to be implemented over 2 years. First year (this year) resulted in cutbacks in all school district across Texas, over $2 million for DSISD. Next year there will be more pain as the second half of the cuts go into effect. I think that is why DSISD decided to shoot for the moon with its proposed tax increase now. There will be a lot more school districts raising their taxes next year, if the voters let em. A big WIN for Perry and Isaac. A big LOSS for the tax payers of Hays County.
Most of you "critics" of public education are falling perfectly into the hands of the Texas state corporatist politicians who are doing a very good job at turning your anger toward the desperate perennial tax hikes by the school districts.
This is exactly what they want.
The primary goal of the public sector hating politicians - mainly the greedy mean-spirited Republicans - is to ensure that state government services fail and public education fails - so they can get all of you to naively vote with their deceitful privatization objectives.
Based on the comments I read here, clearly they are achieving their divisive and middle class warfare objectives.
Most of you now have turned your anger and hate at the children of our schools. What a shameful group of citizens you all are.
If you all don't want your children and grandchildren to end up being the epitome of what "white trash" signifies, you had better start to see the ugly truth that you are shooting yourselves in the foot and being duped by these despicable anti-middle class right wing politicians.
It is only a matter of time when you and your family will be thrown to the coyotes.
To Open Your Eyes:
I agree with you that DSISD decided to shoot for the whole enchilada now on raising its property tax for schools instead of waiting for next year.
We taxpayers should vote against any bond issues (read "debt") until the State can truly balance its budget (not just off-load expenses onto homeowners). Don't feel guilty about voting against bond issues -- even school or road ones. The schools use the money for non-essentials, and road bonds benefit the cronies of our elected county officials -- especially the developers who are hastening the depletion of our aquifers.
As Anonymous #1 said, voters deserve to be taxed out of our homes if we continue to vote for bond issues that cause our taxes to rise.
Open Your Eyes:
Anonymous is correct.
All told, the budgeted $53.83 billion in public education spending tops--by .2 percent--the $53.7 billion budgeted for public education the previous two years, according to Legislative Budget Board summaries. That $125.2 million increase derives from a $3 billion increase in state spending on public education minus a nearly $2.8 billion decrease in federal spending.
"....Rick Perry, love him or hate him, said in one of the debates: " They're passing the bill on to property owners."
Who is the real "They're" passing on the public school funding problem?
It is the corporate owned Rick Perry and the Texas State Legislature who cuts budgets for anything "public" and gives totally unnecessary crony tax breaks and legislative pandering to anything "private."
Like the scapegoating of illegals to blame the failing US economy, now well-meaning citizens are blaming school districts for protecting their funding turf.
Hey, if that is what you all passively allow corporations to do, then school districts should be able to do it too.
And why aren't you anti-tax hike "activists" going after the county commissioners and their real estate development friends who are expanding roads in Hays County for their subdivisions which will bring MORE families into Hays County, which will surely add even more children to our financially strained public schools - demanding even bigger budgets?
At least be consistent with your outrage and indignation. Can you only hate taxes bacause you choose to not do do anything about the special interest private sector pilfering of your tax dollars - which is helping to starve the funding needed to educate our children?
And what about the corporate executives and their upper management who are seeing their salaries, wages and bonuses skyrocket up - while your own wages and benefits are stagnant and you are being asked to pay more for your children's education?
Are you people ever going to see the larger reality here?
Stop looking only at the trees - while the forest is burning.
This is more of the excessively expensive dumbing down of American society and public education. All frills and entertainment but nothing substantive to speak of.
Make the school district prove how it will make better students, better at math, better readers, better writers, better problem solvers. Do they really need so much more money for that? Is there any data that show the high school graduation rate, dropout rate, how many kids are falling through the cracks, how well graduates perform in their first year in college, if students even know who their senators and representatives are? Is the sports franchise viewed with higher status than academics?
If it is a tax increase to subsidize the sports franchise make the sports fanatics and booster clubs pay up. If it is a growth related tax increase, make the growth cheerleaders like the city, chamber of commerce, land developers, real estate dealers pay a much bigger share.
Take a survey and ask parents what they want most in their child's education. Is it the 3-Rs BASICS, classroom instruction, good teachers, sports, fancy facilities, administration salaries, bureaucracy? Cut the funding for the bottom 2 or 3 and stick to the basics.
Ask the school administration if they will be spending your tax money to promote the tax increase. Do they know precisely how many votes they need to win passage and where to get the votes? Are your school board members actively promoting it in collaboration with the city, chamber, boosters, churches?
Most importantly, ask if all that money is really needed to provide a basic good education for the kids. If it cannot be justified in clear terms or you feel in your gut something just is not right and fair, please VOTE NO on Nov. 8.
Rocky said..."And why aren't you anti-tax hike "activists" going after the county commissioners and their real estate development friends who are expanding roads in Hays County for their subdivisions which will bring MORE families into Hays County, which will surely add even more children to our financially strained public schools - demanding even bigger budgets?"
You just don't get it do you? Increased development brings "MORE families into Hays County i.e. more taxpayers so an increase in taxes shouldn't be needed. The school district's ravenous appetites for more tax money are a malignant growth all over the Country but particularly here in Texas due to "Football" mania. We are spending more and more money for schools and getting less and less education for it. The public education system should be dumped in favor of private schools that have no sports programs or unions.
Glad to see there's a lot of discussion. It's one thing to be outraged about a tax increase, but we must also act. Please spread the word to Hays/DSISD property owners who may not read the RoundUp. Tell them about stopthehaystaxincrease.com website. We've just posted sign PDFs that you can print out from your desk top printer. Spread the word and VOTE. Early voting starts 10/24 - locations are posted on stopthehaystaxincrease.com. Thanks, y'all! Val Asensio, Founder, The Committee to Stop the Hays Tax Increase
That loony Donna Campbell who ran against U.S. Congressman Lloyd Doggett last time now says she will challenge State Senator Jeff Wentworth in the March primaries to be the Republican nominee for that position.
It's isn't property owners who are starving DSISD. Hays County property owners already pay the 92nd highest taxes in the USA. We pay more than our fair share, to me that's the underlying issue. The rest is debate about policy. Perry and the Legislature have made education cuts and our taxes are being increased to fill the budget gaps [there are several article citations on stopthehaystaxincrease.com, including New York Times, etc.] . If you don't mind picking up the tab for state level cuts, vote for higher taxes and new bonds. P.S. DSISD is in violation of Texas state law that mandates .65 of every dollar of revenue to spent on actual education of student. They spend less. - Val
Anonymous in the shadows defensively snipes:
You just don't get it do you? Increased development brings "MORE families into Hays County i.e. more taxpayers so an increase in taxes shouldn't be needed.
Yes, I think I get it.
You are OK paying taxes for roads for more subdivisions in an economy that less and less people can afford homes or get loans for homes. And you are then willing to have your home value decline because we have a housing glut locally?
And you don't like educating our children with your money but you are OK enriching development interests that use your public taxes for their free infrastructure that they should be paying for with their own money.
Yeah, I don't get it - but you DO?
A black and white thinking mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Time and again it has been shown that development NEVER pays for itself -- it just adds to the tax burden of the people who are already there.
New development means new kids to be taught, which means more teachers, which means more schools to be built. Then more roads to the new schools to keep up. A/C and heating for the new schools. On and on. New people AlWAYS cost a
community much more than the property taxes those new folks will pay. Wise up!
Anonymous said: "That loony Donna Campbell who ran against U.S. Congressman Lloyd Doggett last time now says she will challenge State Senator Jeff Wentworth in the March primaries to be the Republican nominee for that position."
What exactly has Wentworth done for you? You should look at Wentworth's campaign contributors and the bills he filed and the ones he lobbied for. (Wentworth likes for example, the tax loan lenders who are as bad as payday lenders)
His wholesale attack on property owners and his attempt to eliminate the right to access the groundwater beneath your own property targeting only a population in Hays County should tell you that he isn't representing you.
The only reason he is still in the legislature is because he hasn't been able to compel a state university or college to pay him a pension for his remaining years.
As a Hays County resident, its pretty clear that Wentworth is not representing the people here.
Rocky said..."And why aren't you anti-tax hike "activists" going after the county commissioners and their real estate development friends who are expanding roads in Hays County for their subdivisions which will bring MORE families into Hays County, which will surely add even more children to our financially strained public schools - demanding even bigger budgets?"
Rocky, the county is counting on new HOA-burdened subdivisions (re: planned ghettoes) for financing. The people in these places are taxed as high or higher than other property owners in the county PLUS the county provides ZERO services. Instead the homeowners are compelled to pay private assessments to the HOA and its management company under threat of foreclosure on their homes. A good example of the perils of privatization - and your county basically requires this for all new development.
To Anon 8:22 a.m.:
It's not that I'm FOR Jeff Wentworth. It's just that I'm even more NOT FOR Donna Campbell.
I agree that Wentworth (Mr. Take a Gun to Class) has done little for Hays County.
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