Okay gang,

I've got a little information on Proposition 1 (allowing proceeds for HISD bond sales to be redirected to the state to fund 'Robin Hood' school funding outside of Houston) for which the mayor is urging a 'no' vote, and (I believe it the Republican tax assessor) an alternative viewpoint is that voting no will lead to reallocating certain high dollar property from HISD's tax roles to other districts.

(I.E., because of increasing property values inside HISD, they are now considered a 'rich' tax district).

Any opinions or insight out there on this issue?

On the one hand, although I live in HISD, my kids are in private school, and the services I've received have been disproportional to my taxation, I don't see how shipping money away from the school district in which I live is beneficial to my own property value (or the neighborhoods in relative close proximity to where I live that clearly have poorer schools (but are within HISD).

A friend of mine, a very intelligent education finance lawyer in Houston (Penn/Yale Law School) penned this on his FB page about Proposition 1:

Some folks have asked me to elaborate on my explanation for why I support the HISD ballot proposition. Here goes:

Why is HISD in this predicament?

To maintain equity in the school finance system, the state imposes a cap on how much property wealth per student a district is allowed to have. Because of rising property values in HISD and the state’s failure to make a corresponding increase in the school finance formulas and cap, HISD is now over this cap. Absent a substantial decline in property values, HISD will remain over this cap until the Legislature substantially raises the cap, which would also require a corresponding increase in state funding to maintain the equity of the system.
HISD has no choice but to get under the property wealth per weighted student cap, which is set at $504,000 per weighted student. HISD can either send $162 million to the state to buy attendance credits, thereby increasing the denominator in the ratio above (which requires voter approval, explaining the ballot proposition), or it can allow the Commissioner of Education to permanently detach about $18 billion worth of commercial property from its tax base and assign it to other districts, decreasing the numerator above. Either way, HISD is going to lose access to the funding. Moreover, as property values continue to rise, the amount of recapture owed every year will grow (absent a legislative increase in the cap).

Why I support the proposition.

There is no real dispute that having commercial property permanently stripped away is worse financially for HISD than buying the attendance credits. As former State Rep. and school finance guru Scott Hochberg points out in the op-ed I previously linked to, with a transfer of the property, HISD “loses the recapture amount, plus all the bond taxes the district would have collected off that property. That means the tax rate we all pay for bond payments, now and in the future, has to go up to make up for the taxes lost from the lost property.” In other words, HISD’s tax base will become smaller and it will need a higher tax rate to make its debt payments. That is why “property-wealthy” school districts overwhelmingly choose to buy attendance credits, rather than to allow seizure of property. This piece is a good summary of my views: http://www.ttara.org/files/document/file...fa3ee1.pdf

Why people of good faith oppose the proposition.

The case for “no” is the seizure of property would not occur until fall 2017, after the Legislature meets. The argument is that the Legislature would be so fearful of a backlash from HISD voters and businesses subject to the transfer that it would be compelled to change the school finance system to protect HISD from paying recapture under the “Robin Hood” system. This seems like an enormous gamble to me. I am very skeptical that the Legislature would be compelled to action. After all, it cut $5.4 billion out of public education in 2011 rather than raising revenues, and did not experience any significant political backlash. Also, any solution that would take HISD out of Robin Hood would likely require infusing significant new money into the system to maintain current equity levels in the system, which is an anathema to this Legislature. Finally, the Legislature did not act when other large districts like Austin ISD have moved into the “recapture zone.”

The ballot language.

I’ve seen some people complain about the lack of clarity of the ballot language. HISD did not have any choice in the matter, as the language is dictated by statute – specifically Section 41.096(b) of the Texas Education Code.

Hope this is helpful.

(11-08-2016 12:48 AM)Barrett Wrote:  A friend of mine, a very intelligent education finance lawyer in Houston (Penn/Yale Law School) penned this on his FB page about Proposition 1:

Some folks have asked me to elaborate on my explanation for why I support the HISD ballot proposition. Here goes:

Why is HISD in this predicament?

To maintain equity in the school finance system, the state imposes a cap on how much property wealth per student a district is allowed to have. Because of rising property values in HISD and the state’s failure to make a corresponding increase in the school finance formulas and cap, HISD is now over this cap. Absent a substantial decline in property values, HISD will remain over this cap until the Legislature substantially raises the cap, which would also require a corresponding increase in state funding to maintain the equity of the system.
HISD has no choice but to get under the property wealth per weighted student cap, which is set at $504,000 per weighted student. HISD can either send $162 million to the state to buy attendance credits, thereby increasing the denominator in the ratio above (which requires voter approval, explaining the ballot proposition), or it can allow the Commissioner of Education to permanently detach about $18 billion worth of commercial property from its tax base and assign it to other districts, decreasing the numerator above. Either way, HISD is going to lose access to the funding. Moreover, as property values continue to rise, the amount of recapture owed every year will grow (absent a legislative increase in the cap).

Why I support the proposition.

There is no real dispute that having commercial property permanently stripped away is worse financially for HISD than buying the attendance credits. As former State Rep. and school finance guru Scott Hochberg points out in the op-ed I previously linked to, with a transfer of the property, HISD “loses the recapture amount, plus all the bond taxes the district would have collected off that property. That means the tax rate we all pay for bond payments, now and in the future, has to go up to make up for the taxes lost from the lost property.” In other words, HISD’s tax base will become smaller and it will need a higher tax rate to make its debt payments. That is why “property-wealthy” school districts overwhelmingly choose to buy attendance credits, rather than to allow seizure of property. This piece is a good summary of my views: http://www.ttara.org/files/document/file...fa3ee1.pdf

Why people of good faith oppose the proposition.

The case for “no” is the seizure of property would not occur until fall 2017, after the Legislature meets. The argument is that the Legislature would be so fearful of a backlash from HISD voters and businesses subject to the transfer that it would be compelled to change the school finance system to protect HISD from paying recapture under the “Robin Hood” system. This seems like an enormous gamble to me. I am very skeptical that the Legislature would be compelled to action. After all, it cut $5.4 billion out of public education in 2011 rather than raising revenues, and did not experience any significant political backlash. Also, any solution that would take HISD out of Robin Hood would likely require infusing significant new money into the system to maintain current equity levels in the system, which is an anathema to this Legislature. Finally, the Legislature did not act when other large districts like Austin ISD have moved into the “recapture zone.”

The ballot language.

I’ve seen some people complain about the lack of clarity of the ballot language. HISD did not have any choice in the matter, as the language is dictated by statute – specifically Section 41.096(b) of the Texas Education Code.

Hope this is helpful.

Thanks, Barrett. It was helpful

It also sounds like HISD loses either way. As an urban school district with a (what I perceive to be) relatively high drop out rate, it strikes me that this was not what the Robin Hood legislation was intended to accomplish.

You're very welcome. I agree with you that it certainly seems that HISD loses either way here. It strikes me that voting against the Proposition would result in higher taxes for those living in HISD (with no greater benefit), so in choosing between two evils, one might as well choose the evil that doesn't also have higher taxes associated with it.

All that said, I really do dislike putting complicated matters like this up for popular vote.

So HISD is a rich district, in fact now too rich for its own good, but is not one of the state's top performing districts.

This would suggest that either 1) money is not the problem with education, or 2) HISD is horribly mismanaged.

If I understand the proposal properly, a yes vote is probably consistent with the Robin Hood philosophy. I'm glad I don't live in Houston.

(11-08-2016 06:48 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  So HISD is a rich district, in fact now too rich for its own good, but is not one of the state's top performing districts.

This would suggest that either 1) money is not the problem with education, or 2) HISD is horribly mismanaged.

If I understand the proposal properly, a yes vote is probably consistent with the Robin Hood philosophy. I'm glad I don't live in Houston.

Well if I understand it, the number of students enrolled is a variable that impacts the determination of 'rich'. HISD gets a double hit there. Schools in the poorer areas of HISD have a much higher dropout rate (I'm theorizing here, but not without cause), and while school performance is a factor in that, a much greater factor is living conditions, with either lack of parental support (or no support, I pick up kids to bring to church for our apartment ministry and the number of children living with grandparents, cousins, uncles, etc is, as a percentage, staggering).

The double hit comes from the number of students enrolled in private schools who would increase graduation rates and the number of students in the denominator. My 3 kids as an example. My daughter's graduating class at Awty last year was 125. One's taking a gap year, the remainder are in 4 year universities all over the US and abroad, including Oxford. To my knowledge, no one failed to graduate, at least with a US diploma, and the vast majority sat for the IB and passed, and that's not subjective.

You can 'blame' HISD for the high numbers of private schools, but the majority of them would've gotten good educations in HISD. (*And yes, a number of kids at Awty live outside of HISD, but even so, there are plenty of other private schools siphoning off students from the District).

HISD is as I understand it "rich" in resources (think commercial property)and therefore raises its revenue with less effort (lower tax rate) than "poor" districts. It is not rich in the sense of having more spending per student.
They may still be spending unwisely of course as may the poor districts

(11-08-2016 01:39 AM)Barrett Wrote:  All that said, I really do dislike putting complicated matters like this up for popular vote.

Yep, direct democracy sounds great in theory, but is rarely good in practice.

(11-08-2016 09:01 AM)Owl75 Wrote:  HISD is as I understand it "rich" in resources (think commercial property)and therefore raises its revenue with less effort (lower tax rate) than "poor" districts. It is not rich in the sense of having more spending per student.
They may still be spending unwisely of course as may the poor districts

True of Austin ISD as well. I'd guess probably the case with most large urban districts.

I don't have a dog in this hunt.

Suppose "no" wins. Even forgetting the Legislature's anti-tax and anti-school-funding bent, why on earth would they -- most of whose districts do not overlap HISD anyway -- fear a backlash over the transfer from the same HISD voters who voted for the transfer?

I see "no" as a gamble that the Lege will replace the current system, which seems possible but certainly not inevitable. The idea that "no" will somehow force them to do so seems like pure fantasy.

Again, this doesn't affect me at all, but that's how it looks to me.

Good luck.

(11-08-2016 01:40 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  I don't have a dog in this hunt.

Suppose "no" wins. Even forgetting the Legislature's anti-tax and anti-school-funding bent, why on earth would they -- most of whose districts do not overlap HISD anyway -- fear a backlash over the transfer from the same HISD voters who voted for the transfer?

I see "no" as a gamble that the Lege will replace the current system, which seems possible but certainly not inevitable. The idea that "no" will somehow force them to do so seems like pure fantasy.

Again, this doesn't affect me at all, but that's how it looks to me.

Good luck.

I ended up voting 'yes', primarily based on the discussion in this thread.

Took me awhile to vote. No lines. I just cast a write-in vote (for the first time), and the staff at the poll was completely unprepared to answer any questions on what was needed for the vote to be counted.

I left fearful that I had not complied with the instructions (which were vague and virtually non-existent).

A subsequent call to the Harris County Clerk's office and I was assured that write-in votes were hand counted and that there was no rule as to what needed to be typed in electronically (last name only, first and last, etc)

How do you spell 'Gravy Owl' anyway?

(11-08-2016 01:40 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  I don't have a dog in this hunt.

Suppose "no" wins. Even forgetting the Legislature's anti-tax and anti-school-funding bent, why on earth would they -- most of whose districts do not overlap HISD anyway -- fear a backlash over the transfer from the same HISD voters who voted for the transfer?

I see "no" as a gamble that the Lege will replace the current system, which seems possible but certainly not inevitable. The idea that "no" will somehow force them to do so seems like pure fantasy.

Again, this doesn't affect me at all, but that's how it looks to me.

Good luck.

That was basically my read of the situation as well. My guess is that the Proposition will fail, and so I guess we'll see if the gamble works . . .

(11-08-2016 01:31 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(11-08-2016 12:48 AM)Barrett Wrote:  A friend of mine, a very intelligent education finance lawyer in Houston (Penn/Yale Law School) penned this on his FB page about Proposition 1:...


Why people of good faith oppose the proposition.

The case for “no” is the seizure of property would not occur until fall 2017, after the Legislature meets. The argument is that the Legislature would be so fearful of a backlash from HISD voters and businesses subject to the transfer that it would be compelled to change the school finance system to protect HISD from paying recapture under the “Robin Hood” system. This seems like an enormous gamble to me. I am very skeptical that the Legislature would be compelled to action. After all, it cut $5.4 billion out of public education in 2011 rather than raising revenues, and did not experience any significant political backlash. Also, any solution that would take HISD out of Robin Hood would likely require infusing significant new money into the system to maintain current equity levels in the system, which is an anathema to this Legislature. Finally, the Legislature did not act when other large districts like Austin ISD have moved into the “recapture zone.”

Sigh....

I see this being constantly misreported. The Legislature didn't cut school financing in 2011. It authorized spending of about half a billion dollars above that of the previous biennium. Under the old school financing formula, that was about $5.5 billion less than would have been appropriated. That doesn't mean funding was "cut", though. "Cut" means spending was reduced. It wasn't; it was increased, therefore it wasn't cut. Let's not lose the language here....