The Austin school board last month adopted a $1.2 billion budget for the 2024-25 school year that depends on voters in November approving a tax rate of 92.87 cents per $100 of property valuation. The approved budget would leave Austin schools with a $41 million deficit for the upcoming school year. However, district officials said the proposed tax rate would keep the district from having a $78 million budget shortfall. Statewide, many school districts are grappling with ailing budgets as the Legislature last year did not pass any meaningful increases to public school funding to keep up with rising inflationary costs and demands for additional programming and services as well as employee pay raises — leaving districts to turn to local taxpayers to close the gap. view article

The Austin school board last month adopted a $1.2 billion budget for the 2024-25 school year that depends on voters in November approving a tax rate of 92.87 cents per $100 of property valuation. The approved budget would leave Austin schools with a $41 million deficit for the upcoming school year. However, district officials said the proposed tax rate would keep the district from having a $78 million budget shortfall. Statewide, many school districts are grappling with ailing budgets as the Legislature last year did not pass any meaningful increases to public school funding to keep up with rising inflationary costs and demands for additional programming and services as well as employee pay raises — leaving districts to turn to local taxpayers to close the gap. view article

Leon Fisher is no stranger to the economic challenges faced by Crowley ISD parents. Around 70% of Crowley ISD students are considered economically disadvantaged. The school district’s chief financial officer said those challenges are why Crowley ISD offers an exemption allowing homeowners to reduce the taxable value of their primary residence by 10% and why it strives to keep taxes low as growth in the area explodes. But Fisher fears the sweeping changes approved by the Tarrant Appraisal District’s board of directors July 22 — also intended to provide property tax relief to residents — could have dire consequences for public education in his community. “Parents are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. They want the tax benefit from this proposal, but it’s really all about educating people on how it’s going to impact your school district,” Fisher said. “It’s going to have an adverse impact on your school district’s ability to both complete (bond) projects within the scheduled time and within the budgeted amounts that were initially identified for these bond projects.” view article

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The summer provides a nice break for students and teachers alike, but school administrations and boards of trustees are busy finalizing and adopting budgets and proposed tax rates. At the June 25 regular meeting, Garland Independent School District trustees completed the task of approving their fiscal year budget for 2024-25 (FY25) and adopting a proposed tax rate. view article

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)-- Socorro Independent School District held a board meeting to discuss how to correct the error that overcharged tax payers. TEA conservator, Dr. Michael Hinojosa says the error over charged tax payers around $24 individually and totaled $2 million. Hinojosa says they don't know how the error occurred but they will conduct an investigation. view article

The Seguin ISD is taking the first steps towards potentially asking voters for some much needed financial relief. The Seguin ISD Board of Trustees this week gave the go ahead for an audit that is required for district’s looking to ask voters for a tax rate increase using a Voter Approved Tax Rate Election. As initially reported by the Seguin Daily News, the Seguin ISD faces an almost $4 million deficit. view article

The South San Antonio Independent School District is the latest in the city to institute a pay increase for employees. On Thursday, the district’s board of trustees approved a 2% increase for all district employees ahead of the 2024-2025 school year. The entry pay for teachers at South San ISD is $59,350, up nearly $1,000 from the prior school year. view article

Socorro ISD says it charged taxpayers more than it should have last year. In a letter sent out to faculty, the district said that its state conservators found the Maintenance and Operations tax rate exceeded the maximum rate allowed by the Texas Education Agency. "For a $246,000 home (with the homestead exemption) this equates to approximately $24 total for the year," the district went on to explain in its letter. " We are not alone in this situation; 10 districts in the state are in a similar scenario this year and last year 100 Texas school districts also faced this issue." view article

Clear Creek ISD's fiscal year 2024-25 budget is expected to have a shortfall of $13.4 million as well as a tax rate decrease of about 0.8%. At a work session meeting June 6, district officials said they are projecting about $386 million in revenue for FY 2024-25. This would be about a $2.2 million decrease from FY 2023-24, according to district documents. view article

Additionally, Molly Cook will fill the remainder of Mayor John Whitmire’s term in the state senate. Republicans led in Harris County’s first election for Appraisal District Board with Kyle Scott (Place 2) and Ericka McCrutcheon (Place 3) both coming in first in their respective races and now heading into a runoff. In Place 1, Republican Bill Frazer came in behind former Houston ISD Trustee Kathy Blueford-Daniels who just avoided a runoff with 50.35 percent of the vote. Scott led his opponent 46 percent to 24 percent and McCrutcheon came in ahead at 41 percent to 21 percent. All three candidates were endorsed by the Harris County Republican Party while the Republican Party of Texas endorsed Frazer and Scott but not McCrutcheon. Scott, who was most recently the Republican nominee for County Treasurer, also carried the endorsement of the Houston Chronicle. The races for Place 2 and 3 are now headed into a June 15 runoff. view article

A chance meeting between a hobbyist beekeeper and a legislative aide for a rookie state lawmaker led to the creation of the “bee bill” over a decade ago. Since then, the Texas beekeeping boom has exploded demand for beekeeping classes for landowners who qualify for the tax break. The story goes like this: Dennis Herbert, a retired wildlife biologist who oversaw natural resources and managed recreational hunting and other wildlife at a Texas military base met Andrea Williams McCoy, the chief of staff for a newly elected state representative, at an art store he happened to run. One thing led to another, and they started talking about bees, Herbert said. McCoy raised bees as a girl with her father in Texarkana, and was shocked when Herbert said bees weren’t on the list of agricultural uses that give Texans a break on their property taxes. He argued it would be more fair to beekeepers, whose bees pollinate crops. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she remembered thinking, surprised that beekeepers didn’t qualify for tax reductions already. “You couldn’t even have agriculture without beekeeping.” McCoy took the idea back to her boss, Texarkana Republican state Rep. George Lavender. She pitched the bill as fitting his rural, agricultural district. He then explained it to some of his constituents, who supported the idea. Lavender figured beekeepers “deserved the same break everybody else got” since bees pollinate plants, he said. Lavender then filed the bee bill, which set a minimum of five acres and left it up to local regions to determine how many hives would be required because local ecosystems are so varied. view article

Harris County voters will head back to the polls today for the third time in less than two months. This time they will be voting in a runoff election to decide who will sit on the Harris Central Appraisal District, a board that oversees the local appraisers who are partly responsible for determining property tax bills. Though one of the three HCAD seats was won outright in May, a runoff election was triggered when no candidate won at least 50% of the vote in the other two races. Early voting locations will be open from June 3 through June 11, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. – except on Sunday, when the hours are 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. – while election day locations will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 15. view article

Northwest ISD may soon be forced to cut programs and reduce teacher hiring. Without additional funds, the district faces a $14 million deficit in its 2024-25 budget, Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Pastusek told trustees during a May 6 board meeting. Superintendent Mark Foust and board President Steve Sprowls aren’t confident that the Texas Legislature will provide those funds come 2025. “Texas is sitting on a surplus of funds, and because (legislators) let the politics of private school vouchers get involved in the mix with public school funding, funding never got passed,” Sprowls said. In a bid to overcome escalating financial challenges, Northwest ISD is considering placing a measure on the Nov. 5 ballot to increase the district’s property tax rate. If approved, the initiative would secure $15 million in additional funding, Pastusek said. “Our goal is to continue providing excellent educational experiences and staff support without compromising our financial stability,” he said. Weekend Worthy (728 x 90 px).png Northwest ISD officials are discussing raising one of two smaller rates that form the overall property tax: view article

Liberty Hill ISD may ask voters to approve an increase to the district’s tax rate for fiscal year 2024-25. District officials discussed the revenue for the district and the cost to taxpayers associated with various tax rate increases during a budget workshop at a May 6 special meeting. The district is projecting a $5 million budget shortfall for FY 2024-25 and a $2 million shortfall this fiscal year, Chief Financial Officer Rosanna Guerrero said. view article

Texas homeowners have long had a springtime ritual: checking the latest appraised value of their property with dread, assuming that the new value alone will drive up their tax bill. Now, voters will have more direct say in who runs the obscure agencies that oversee the property appraisal process that plays a major role in individual property taxes and the revenues local governments collect to fund operations and public services. For the first time Saturday, voters in some of the state’s largest counties will elect some of the board members for local appraisal districts, whose employees ultimately determine how much property is worth for tax purposes. Until now, those boards have been made up of the county tax assessor-collector, who is also elected, and members appointed by local taxing districts like cities, counties and school districts. The new state law requires appraisal district boards to have nine members. The tax assessor-collector will hold one seat, appointed members will hold five and those elected by voters will hold three. Elected members will serve four-year terms. view article

Three Democratic Party-backed candidates won the first-ever elections to the Travis Central Appraisal District's board of directors Saturday, according to the unofficial results from the Travis County clerk's office. Securing election to the nonpartisan positions were Jett Hanna for Place 1, Shenghao “Daniel” Wang for Place 2 and Dick Lavine for Place 3. The nine-member board — only three of whom are now elected — hires the district's chief appraiser, approves the appraisal district's budget, approves contracts and sets general policies, according to the district's website. The early and mail-in vote results released shortly after the polls closed Saturday evening showed each of the Travis County Democratic Party's endorsees holding solid leads over the Republican and third party challengers — a trend that held throughout election day. Hanna, Wang and Lavine were all elected by wide margins, with each race getting about 51,000 ballots cast. view article

In the state’s larger counties, voters can now elect people to the agencies that appraise property values.  Texas homeowners have long had a springtime ritual: checking the latest appraised value of their property with dread, assuming that the new value alone will drive up their tax bill.  Now, voters will have more direct say in who runs the obscure agencies that oversee the property appraisal process that plays a major role in individual property taxes and the revenues local governments collect to fund operations and public services. view article

Texas has spent billions of dollars to drive down property taxes. Many homeowners saw a significant tax cut last year, per a Texas Tribune analysis.  A longtime homeowner in McAllen. A senior living in southeast Austin. The owners of a home in a quickly gentrifying Dallas neighborhood.  Each saw a sizable cut in their property tax bill in 2023 after the Texas Legislature funneled billions of dollars into tax cuts, according to a Texas Tribune analysis.  For the past five years, Republican lawmakers have been on a crusade to rein in the state’s property taxes, among the highest in the nation. Last year, they went big with a $12.7 billion package comprised of tax breaks for homeowners and money for school districts to drive down how much they collect from property owners, which usually represents the biggest portion of Texans’ property tax bills. view article

A longtime homeowner in McAllen. A senior living in southeast Austin. The owners of a home in a quickly gentrifying Dallas neighborhood. Each saw a sizable cut in their property tax bill in 2023 after the Texas Legislature funneled billions of dollars into tax cuts, according to a Texas Tribune analysis. For the past five years, Republican lawmakers have been on a crusade to rein in the state’s property taxes, among the highest in the nation. Last year, they went big with a $12.7 billion package comprised of tax breaks for homeowners and money for school districts to drive down how much they collect from property owners, which usually represents the biggest portion of Texans’ property tax bills. For many homeowners, those efforts resulted in significant tax breaks. view article

COLLEGE STATION (Texas Real Estate Research Center) – Texas’ housing market slowed in February after persistently low mortgage interest rates contributed to record sales in the existing-home sector the previous month. "Sales activity was greatly hindered by February’s unseasonably wintery weather that caused power outages and water disruptions across the state," said Dr. Luis Torres, research economist for the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. Existing-homes sold through the Texas Multiple Listing Services declined 16 percent from January, drawing even with year-ago levels. Despite slower sales, the state’s existing-home inventory fell below 1.5 months in February. The number of new listings that hit the market declined for the second straight month to their lowest reading since April 2020, when the state was under a stay-at-home mandate. view article

Count on the Texas Legislature to come up with a painfully complicated and inefficient way to repeal a painfully complicated and inefficient tax. Lawmakers deserve praise for targeting the Texas Franchise Tax, but their methods are unsound. The franchise tax, also called the margins or business tax, ranks consistently as one of the worst taxes anywhere in the country. It was the convoluted response to the Texas Supreme Court declaring the public school finance system unconstitutional. Lawmakers had to lower property taxes to comply with the court order, so to find replacement funds they rewrote the franchise tax, what businesses pay for the privilege to operate in our great state. view article

The Dallas school board Thursday night voted against putting a tax ratification election before voters this fall. The proposed 13-cent tax hike would have given the district $100 million to fund early childhood education and early college high school programs. The district also wanted to expand a program that pays extra money to top teachers who take jobs in some of the district’s toughest schools. view article

Trustees of the Wylie Independent School District proposed a tax rate of $1.13 per $100 of property value for the 2016-17 fiscal year — a tax cut of 2.4 cents — and added more money to the proposed budget for teachers' salaries during Monday's regular board meeting. Trustees conducted their third of three workshops for the 2016-17 budget of $32.340 million and set a special meeting for Monday, Aug. 29, at 6:30 p.m. to receive comments from the public on the budget and tax rate and then consider approval. view article

School trustees in Kilgore began their budget-writing season Monday with an overview of what is and isn’t known about financing the 2014-15 school year. view article