Vote against Austin ISD Proposition A. We need smarter spending and transparency!
Your Austin property tax helped pay for this 20 million dollar water park in La Joya ISD? Yes it did.
Austin ISD Proposition A on our 2024 ballot is confusing. We are led to believe that if we all vote yes for yet another tax hike, more of our hard-earned money will “help fix” Austin ISD’s budget woes. This is false, and let me explain.
FACT- Prop A won’t fix the problem. What Prop A does is take more out of your bank account to raise $171 million dollars, but only $41 million stays in AISD. This is due to a 31-year-old law known as “state recapture” aka Robin Hood.
Recapture takes our tax revenue and allocates it to a general state fund, which “in theory” should then be distributed to underfunded school districts across Texas. This mechanism alone complicates the ability to understand which recapture funds are allocated to schools as opposed to other segments of the state budget. This is important because we are talking a large sum of money!
FACT- Initially budgeted at $127 million dollars in 1993, Recapture now costs nearly $5 billion dollars annually. District 47 school districts like Eanes and Austin ISDs pick up most of the tab. Eanes ISD in Westlake alone is sending over $100 million dollars to recapture while Austin ISD has an eye watering nearly $1,000,000,000 billion dollar Recapture bill. This is the largest in Texas!
With all of our billons, surely Texas has one of the highest ranking education levels in America? Unfortunately not.
FACT- Texas education consistently ranks in the bottom half of America. WalletHub's 2023 study on US school systems has Texas at the number 28 spot. On the Nation’s Report Card, the percentage of students in Texas who performed at or above the 2022 NAEP Proficient level was only 23%, down from 25% in 2019. College entrance exam scores aren’t much better. The company Learner, found that the average Texas SAT score in 2022 was a a 1001, which is 49 points less than the national average of 1050. Texas’ score is 251 points below the top-scoring state of Wisconsin (1252).
FACT- Recapture funds are being squandered in ways that are hard to justify. Take, for instance, the extravagant $20 million "Sports and Learning Center" in La Joya ISD, funded by taxpayer dollars. La Joya, a small community near the Mexico border with just 4,660 residents, boasts this facility that features water slides, a multi-lane swimming pool, and even a full golf course. Impressive, right? But the financial mismanagement doesn’t end there. During the 2017-2018 fiscal year, the district incurred nearly $540,000 in operational costs for the Center, resulting in a staggering loss of almost $250,000. Additionally, the school district's golf course, Howling Trails, faced its own challenges, racking up a deficit of around $302,000. These losses were covered by the general fund, raising serious concerns about fiscal responsibility.
FACT- Recapture is exasperating the affordability crisis in our area. Rising taxes for District 47 residents means many may never be able to retire and renters will continue to pay more. Some will simply leave to other parts of Texas where they don't have this unfair tax burden.
FACT- We are not saying don’t give teachers raises. To be clear, as a former teacher and school principal, opposing Prop A is not about opposing teachers raises. Quite the opposite, as a parent with four kids currently in public middle and high schools, good teachers wholeheartedly deserve raises.
The issue here is about smarter spending and transparency.
Recapture has failed. What Recapture really means is District 47 residents disproportionately pay a “State Property Tax.”
It must stop, and there are solutions to be urgently discussed. One solution is shifting to a different funding model. It can be one that relies more on a state funding (e.g. raising state sales tax or other statewide funding sources) and less on property tax owners from wealthier areas.
If elected, I will urgently seek the best solutions.
The cost benefit is the litmus and right now we are not getting the bang for our buck!
SUMMARY- WHY OPPOSE PROP A-
Your Wallet: If Prop A passes, expect to pay about $400-500 dollars more in property taxes yearly, with only a small percentage of this money going to Austin ISD.
Funding Misuse: Most of money from the proposed Prop A tax hike will go to the state, not Austin schools, and there are multiple examples of the misuse of recapture funds.
Declining Enrollment and worsening student results: Despite fewer students, AISD hasn’t cut back, and academic outcomes are getting worse!
Affordability Crisis- Higher taxes effects both property owners and renters, making our cost of living even higher.
2023 Texas Recapture funds by ISD