School funding hot topic at forum
Huntsville Item 3/31/08
Kelly Prew, News Editor

During a forum on education and taxation held in Huntsville on Thursday, several of the state’s top lawmakers spoke on the current state of school finance and property taxes and their expectations for the upcoming Legislative session.

In the forum, hosted by the Home and Land Owners’ Association of Texas, policy makers did not deny they are grappling with school finance — in particular, that the school finance system relies too heavily on local property taxes — or that they have different opinions about possible solutions.

“My expectations are high to get the job done before June 1,” said state Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, who also chairs the Senate Finance Committee. “We’ll have to cut property taxes substantially ... and come up with a substitute that makes the system broader based and fair.”

According to the Texas School Finance Project, half of the nearly 1,100 school districts levy taxes at or near the statutory cap of $1.50 for maintenance and operations, and the current school finance system was developed with little consideration of the costs of achieving the state’s educational goals.

State Rep. Kent Grusendorf of Arlington told the audience of about 35 people, the problem is a mix of spending and taxation, and for the past 20 years, trends in education have gone wayward.

Student enrollment is up 40 percent, school employees are up 151 percent, and only one in three are classroom teachers, and total school property tax levies are up 270 percent.

“If we continue these trend lines, in 30 years, we’ll have one employee for every student,” he said. “Over the past four decades, we have seen a 300 percent increase per student in spending after the inflation adjustment.”

Grusendorf added that dropout rates are up and many college freshman require remedial classes. He said a solution will have to involve both taxation and reform issues.

“... We have to decide if we want to pay for welfare rolls or for education,” he said.

State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, said expectations for the upcoming session are, for her, to narrow the focus and nail down the best solutions in a timely manner.

“I have been struck by good ideas but a scattering of ideas,” she said. “I’d like for us to come out of the session with a constitutionally sound system.”

With regard to which kind of taxes work best and what, if anything, the state’s surplus could do to help lower property taxes, Kolkhorst summed it up this way, “We’ll put all those things out there and make some decisions. We will do what’s best for the people of Texas. If we don’t do exactly what you want, hopefully, we’ll have the leadership in 2007 to get it done.”

Rep. Reuben Hope, R-Conroe, and Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, also sat on the panel.