GOVERNOR ABBOTT CALLS FOR SPECIAL SESSION
Sending out the call late yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon, Governor Greg Abbott advised the 85th Texas 
Legislature that they would be convening for a special session.
The session will begin on July 18th.
The special session agenda items will include legislation such as:
- Sunset legislation
- Teacher pay increase of $1,000
- Administrative flexibility in teacher hiring and retention practices
- School finance reform commission
- School choice for special needs students
- Property tax reform
- Caps on state and local spending
- Preventing cities from regulating what property owners do with trees on private land
- Preventing local governments from changing rules midway through construction projects
- Speeding up local government permitting process
- Municipal annexation reform
- Texting while driving preemption
- Privacy
- Prohibition of taxpayer dollars to collect union dues
- Prohibition of taxpayer funding for abortion providers
- Pro-life insurance reform
- Strengthening abortion reporting requirements when health complications arise
- Strengthening patient protections relating to do-not-resuscitate orders
- Cracking down on mail-in ballot fraud
- Extending maternal mortality task force
In a statement from State Senator Lois Kolkhorst, she had the following to say in response to the call:
"I share the Governors commitment to solving the nineteen issues put forth in his Call for the special session of the 85th Legislature. Whether it is solving school finance challenges, lowering skyrocketing property taxes, protecting the privacy, safety and dignity of all Texans, or addressing the alarming maternal mortality rates in our state, I stand ready to serve."
Informed, you are aware that Senator Kolkhorst was the author/sponsor of the bathroom bill? Lt. Governor Patrick, the leader of the Senate, put the bathroom bill ahead of these other items now listed in the special session.
Lt. Patrick is also a proponent of lowering the property tax. The property tax is a local tax. The state sets the cap. The property tax is used to fund local County and schools. To lower the property taxes would require the state to pay more of the cost of public school education. They pay more, your property taxes go down. The last time they did a “swap” to lower property taxes from $1.50 to $1.04 over two years. They promised to keep funding levels for public schools at the same level. They did not. Public schools lost funding. This year Burton ISD will lose additional funding of possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars as the state reneges on their promise once again. Your local school districts never come out ahead, requiring local taxes to increase to keep funding the same.
For Kolkhorst to say that she is all in to “solving skyrocketing property taxes” is misleading at best. The tax RATE for public schools has been capped at $1.04 for several years now. What goes up is the VALUE of the property, not the tax rate. Value is determined by the STATE. The only way your property tax rate to support public schools goes up goes up is if a majority of the voters approve it in a vote.
On improving the Texas school funding, there was a bill supported by the House and most people in Education agreed it was an adequate solution for the immediate future. It was denied by Lt. Governor Patrick by political maneuvering. He attached a change to the bill supporting the use of public school funds to be funneled to private schools for special needs students. This was an obvious attempt to open the door to using public funds to eventually be channeled to all private schools. The House members opposed this change and let the bill die rather than allow this raid on public school funds.
The politics behind using funding public schools to finance private and charter schools is dirty and unpleasant. I would encourage you and others to educate yourself on property tax and public school finance politics. You should find out WHY there are two opposing sides and what each has as their final solution. As for Lt. Patrick, none of it is in the best interest of the parent or student.
I’m surprised that I never see the ag or wildlife exemptions mentioned in these conversations. I would really like to see a comparison published by Mr. Dilworth of what my property taxes would be if all the non-livelihood erning ag-exempt folks paid their fair share. Anyone know if that info is available somewhere? I mean, we’re talking folks with incredible trophy estates who formerly paid $20000+/yr getting their exemptions and paying ~$300/yr. Eight swaybacked old nags, some decaying cedar birdhouses and a couple of brushpiles = $19000/yr savings?! How is that fair?
Regarding some of your points on taxes.
-I don’t see the 1.04 rate on my 2017 tax form, I do see 1.135 as the estimated rate for Brenham ISD. Why is that?
-Appraised value is based on market prices, the state’s involved but concurrence is also given by the county. A county could technically say no to state values but that’s like saying no to the real value of your property. You can fight it, I understand your fight, but its a losing one as you’re up against the market, not just the state and local governments.
-Everyone should focus their efforts on two things in this county when it comes to property taxes this year.
1. The tax rates -ALL OF THEM should be adjusted greatly this year to compensate for the new appraised value of our property. If you have property value that increases 10% in a year for example, we should not just ask to but demand to see a like decrease in the tax rate. We have nearly absolute control of our local tax rate, if our elected school board and commissioners are not doing this then the tax payer is getting fleeced. The revenue stream should never be greater than a inflation adjusted revenue stream from last year. If we fail to adjust our property tax rates the superintendent will be driving in a ’17 Cadi next year instead of a ’13 GMC – not really but you get the picture.
2. Every property tax payer should be given a prospectus or access to one with a year to year specific spreadsheet of revenue and costs for the country, school, college, city, FM along with who exactly decided the spending and the tax rate.
Regarding your position on school vouchers. I’m a parent and I want a choice of how to use the money ($8,400 per Texas student per year) allocated to my kids. With that kind of money a parent can afford a very good education for their child and shield them from the growing and very harmful influences in our public school system (until the child is mature enough to be prepared for them). I pay property taxes and I want my money to be spent on an education that’s actually valuable and a peer group I can approve and be proud of. After my kids graduate then my tax money can go back into public ed paying for liberal activist teachers, indoctrination programs for secular humanists and their moral relativist kin, transportation and 24×7 feeding programs, babysitting, bloated sports programs and then a little math and English on the side.
I found your comment very insightful and informative, right up until you started broad-brushing the education system with “liberal activist,” “moral relativist,” and “babysitting.” I’m sure you know many TEACHERS, as I do, that don’t fall anywhere close to these descriptions, and you undermine the credibility of your earlier arguments when you reveal this bias. Perhaps America’s public school administrators could credibly be described with such terms, but virtually none of the hundreds of public school teachers I’ve known could be. I agree 100% with your early arguments, but please don’t throw the teachers under the bus!
My apologies Rory, my comments do not apply to all in the education field. But I don’t get a choice in public ed to avoid the negative adult influences that do apply. To have an administrator or a board member described as such it makes it that much worse as they control personnel, policy and environment. My experiences have not been as positive as yours.
These items could have been addressed during regular session if far too much time not been spent on the bathroom bill. And you can bet they will attach the vote pandering bathroom bill to one of the few citizen friendly bills in the above list. Count on it. And the taxpayers will pay for this unnecessary special session. If they want to lower property taxes, then why did they just instruct our appraisal district to raise them? Because putting “property tax relief” on the list fools the UNINFORMED voter. Ask Dilworth, he will tell you about the state law that compels him to raise our property taxes. The entire second session is about vote pandering to “low information” voters.
I am so glad that the right to privacy is again on the call for the special session, it is not a “bathroom bill” but truly a statewide debate over men and boys declaring their female gender and then being allowed instantly into the public school dressing rooms, locker rooms and restrooms of the girl students. That’s important to some of us.
As for Wily Dilworth, he is the chief appraiser and cannot lower or raise your taxes, but rather he can only raise the value of the property. The rates are set at the local level by the local taxing authorities, who are in charge of your tax bill. Wily Dilworth must comply with state audits only to make sure he is within the rate of comparable sales of real estate in the area, this is merely done so that the taxpayers know that he is not “low-balling” or “high-balling” anyone. That’s the limit of his role and he is not raising or lowering taxes, only the values as reported by local sales of property.
Protecting girls from predators in the bathroom and lowering our property tax RATE are both great goals and I am happy to hear it will be finally dealt with in the special session. Now I hope you are REALLY informed.
So there’s no debate about women and girls who want to re-assign their gender to ‘male’ so they can frequent men’s bathrooms and locker rooms? I’m not sure we’re all having the same debate here. Why is this bill only important for “women’s safety?”
Dilworth does not raise the taxes. His job is to appraise the values at market value. The taxing entities set the tax rate (which could be lowered due to high appraisals). The city, county, and Blinn taxing authorities are the problem.
What about signing off on the Bill to grant 100% Disabled Veterans in Dallas area free access to Tollways like you have already issued for San Antonio and Austin 100 % Disabled Veterans.