State expects to spend $3.5 billion less on schools, property taxes to fill gap

[TexasTowelie]

The Texas Education Agency projects the state will spend $3.5 billion less in general revenue for public education in the coming years because potential local property tax revenue is expected to skyrocket statewide.

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath confirmed this early projection in front of a state budget panel Wednesday morning as he laid out the state agency’s budget request through 2021. The shift to a greater share of local funding already hit a milestone in Waco this year. For the first time in a Waco Independent School District budget, local taxpayers are providing more funding than the state, officials have said.

“This request from TEA is a smoking gun,” Waco ISD Board President Pat Atkins said Wednesday. “TEA has specifically requested that the state reduce its share of funding because local property taxes will make up the difference.”

The Foundation School Program, the main way of distributing state funds to Texas public schools, includes both state general revenue and local property tax revenue. Local property values are expected to grow by about 6.8 percent each year, and existing statute requires the state to use that money first before factoring in state funding.

Read more: https://www.wacotrib.com/news/education/state-expects-to-spend-billion-less-on-schools-property-taxes/article_f685531d-5593-502f-af2d-2568205ca73a.html

[walkingman]

1. This will continue until people quit voting for these neanderthals. They would much rather find some

way to give "bidness" another tax cut. We get what we deserve in Texas.