SENATOR KOLKHORST GIVES KWHI FIRST DISTRICT INTERVIEW POST SESSION

Ask if she remembers this.

In 2006, The Texas Supreme Court had ruled that with over 90% of the school districts at the state cap of $1.50, the state legislature had in effect imposed a statewide tax. A statewide income tax is unconstitutional in Texas.

The state legislature, Kolkhorst was our state representative, had reduced the commitment of the state budget over several years. They did this by re-distributing the Chapter 41 or Robin Hood funds collected from property rich districts. Basically they were taking local property taxes from districts like Burton ISD, putting it in state bank accounts, and writing checks on those accounts as “state funds” to meet their obligation to provide a free and public education for the kids of our state.

In addition, they kept the funding levels at the same amount for several years, while Texas schools were adding 100,000 new students a year. The Texas economy was doing good and people were pouring in. In addition, the amount of kids that came from Spanish speaking homes were on the rise. This meant schools were getting less funding per student every year.

In an effort to avoid the Texas Supreme Court forcing the legislature to come up with a new school finance system, the Governor and legislature devised a new plan. They would “buy down” the school tax rate of $1.50 to $1.04 over two years. This would require the state to increase their contribution to school finance by billions of dollars. The state was going to lower the property taxes of the taxpayers by forty six cents, AND give the districts back that forty six cents. In effect, it would keep the funding levels about the same.

To pay for the added revenue, the state imposed higher taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. They also created a business tax. The business tax was expected to bring in about $6 billion in revenue. The tax would be on the gross income over $100,000 or so of small businesses. Whatever the threshold was, the businesses cried it was too much. Businesses like car washes, convenience stores and others petitioned Governor Perry. He raised the threshold to like $1 million. This higher threshold exempted lots of businesses. Others that were just over the threshold found ways to divide their companies from one entity to three or more to exclude them from being taxed. Things like car dealers creating a separate repair shop, tire shop, body shop were examples.

Well, since the threshold was raised and others broke their business into smaller parts, this tax did not raise near the amount of money needed for the state to make their promises to the districts. So began the cuts to funding.

The state had promised to keep state finance at the level it was when the property tax was at $1.50. They created the “Additional State Aid for Tax Reduction”, known as ASATR.

Did the state keep its promise? Do pigs fly?

In 2011, the state voted to end ASATR in 2017. What effect does it have on local districts? The state legislature effectively cut several districts of sometimes hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in funding. In Burton ISD it will cut state funding quite a bit.

Could someone ask Senator Kolkhorst how much each of the districts she represents will lose due to the loss of ASATR funding? I believe she should be asked by the School Board of each of those School Districts to explain the history of how it came to this, and secondly, explain the state’s continued lack of financial support of the public school districts in Texas.

In my opinion, the state legislature has tried over the years to put public schools at risk. They tried testing teachers, but they passed the test at over 95% on the first test. They tried teacher appraisal system, but the teachers adapted and improved and proved they were professional and well qualified. They began testing students with basic skills. The test are now testing at the higher skill levels requiring synthesis and in math, being able to successfully complete several computations to get an answer.

So what is the strategy now? Starve them. Cut funding. No money for technology. Change the calculation for retirement to require more years of service and add more years to be averaged to reduce retirement benefits. Threaten health insurance for retirees with being unstable because the state lowers their contribution. Less money to meet payroll.

What is their objective? Try to make public schools unstable and unable to provide an adequate free and public education. In doing so they increase the viability of sending public funds to private schools.

Why do that? Private schools will accept funding levels at say 60%. Why? Because they can supplement that with tuition, charging students to attend their school. Public schools cannot charge parents, they have to rely on public funds or grants. Private schools can hire unqualified, uncertified staff, so they can pay less. The private school can fire at will. The private school will not require state funds for social security, health benefits, retirement benefits, paid leave, and other things.

They want to cut the cost of education to the bare minimum. The current political group knows their supporters will have the funds to pay for a private education at an exclusive school that can exclude special needs, English as second language, poor, attendance and discipline problem kids. This will create a first and second class society.

If you can get Kolkhorst to come to your Board meeting or aTown Hall to discuss the loss of ASATR funding, invite her to pitch her thoughts on supporting public schools in her district, what is she willing to do?