New business tax offered as finance fix (Who'da thunk it!)

Austin American Statesman ^ | 22 March 2006 | Jason Embry & W. Garner Selby

[Doctor Stochastic]

I'm back now. My primary interest is in lowering taxes and reducing government. It's an uphill battle; I'm fighting the Conservatives and the Liberals (as I have for 50+ years.)

[Doctor Stochastic]

No, I just looked at the one in DeSoto. It's about $4,000,000.00. There are others. Maybe the school boards should just jointly purchase Texas stadium; that might be cheaper.

[Centurion2000]

A tax on receipts - sounds like an income tax.

That's exactly what it is ... and why the heck should I pay an extra dollar per pack of cigarettes?

[Centurion2000]

Ah, you must have seen the "60 Minutes" piece on Denton ISD's new stadium!

That thing is a HUGE boondoggle up on 288.

[isthisnickcool]

This is an income tax on businesses.

There is already such a tx. It's called the franchise tax.

[Osage Orange]

I'm back now. My primary interest is in lowering taxes and reducing government. It's an uphill battle; I'm fighting the Conservatives and the Liberals (as I have for 50+ years.)

Well then you didn't get back fast enough! (vbg)

Strange isn't it? Fighting both "sides".

It's apparently whose ox is being gored, eh?

Hey..always wanted to ask you about your screen name. How did you come up with it? Are you a TA chartist?

FRegards,

[Dawgreg]

Get ready to bend over.........they're at it again!

[Doctor Stochastic]

No. Before I retired, I invented some new methods for Monte Carlo computation of integrals (along with some new ideas for error estimates.) Another person had already taken the nickname "Count of Monte Carlo" so I had to invent another moniker.

[One Proud Dad]

I grew up in Denton and my parents still live there. I cringe everytime I visit and have to go around the SE loop or other streets like Bell Ave. The city engineers and highway engineers screwed the pooch on planning for the population increase. The roads are basically the same as when I left here in early 80's. But hey they have 2 new high schools and a new stadium and countless parks and feel good pork projects all over town.

[vic ryan]

I for one am sick and tired of hearing about the underpaid teachers. No one snuck up and changed the pay scale when they started teaching. They knew the pay when they signed on. If they had wanted more pay they could have taken chemistry, biology, or calculus in college instead of those mind numbing time wasting education courses.

My wife suffered through those courses so she could teach because she loved to teach. She knew her pay wouldn't buy us a new Lexus every year. She just loved teaching and young people.

And paying paper pushing administrators, counselors and assorted flunkies those inflated salaries is just plain stupid. I'm never voting for a school bond issue again.

[jwh_Denver]

"Currently in the Aubrey ISD there is an "administrator" for about every two teachers!"

A number of years ago Denver was trying to get bond issues passed for schools. What killed them and other cities in the metro area was adminstration costs were 40% of the budget. The voters didn't forget that for many years.

[mnehring]

My wife is a teacher who chooses to teach for less at private schools just so she doesn't have to deal with the TEA... She doesn't complain (much) that she makes far less than public school teachers who have less education than her.

..and to be blunt, even at the current pay rate, teacher's salaries are very competitive with similar work in the corporate world, except, the corporate world doesn't get 3 months off in the summer.

[Iwo Jima]

From the article: The judges gave lawmakers until June 1 to restore that discretion and threatened to cut off state funding for schools if the system is not fixed.

I am probably one of the few that has actually read the Texas Supreme Court's ruling. This is an incorrect statement.

What the Supreme Court has done is upheld that trial court's ruling that the school property tax is unconstitutional and therefore the collection of that unconstitutional tax must be enjoined. The trial court had set the effective date of the injunction as October 1, 2005, but the Supreme Court moved that date to June 1, 2006.

If, as I hope, the legislature does nothing, then "all" that happens is we don't have to pay school property taxes. If anyone is interested (not me) in funding government schools any other way, they are not prohibited from doing so by this ruling.

[mnehring]

Bingo.. but to garner votes, many (on the Right and Left) have made this issue into a 'crisis', selling it that their schools won't be funded after June 1st..

[Unmarked Package]

"Currently in the Aubrey ISD there is an "administrator" for about every two teachers!"

It is even worse than you realize. In all of Texas, the ratio of teacher-to-non-teacher is almost 1-to-1 and only 51 cents of every taxpayer dollar goes to classroom instruction.

The article linked below provides some insight into the waste, fraud, and abuse that are making public education so costly in Texas.

School administration is out of touch with the taxpayer

[Iwo Jima]

Exactly. The legislature can fund education by cutting other spending, using the surplus, using sales or other taxes, or other ways that I can't enumerate off the top of my head. But until they fix the property tax scheme, the school districts cannot collect this unconstitutional property tax.

[mnehring]

Frankly, they can restructure the bureaucracy and make public school teaching a 'right to work' industry to save a hell of a lot of money.

[Iwo Jima]

Hey, keep me pinged on this issue if you can, O.K.?

[mnehring]

Will do..

[Sarajevo]

Former state Comptroller John Sharp can go out the door and take Perry with him.

If we were to lower the pay, or better yet, rid ourselves of the $250,000+ per year school superintendents, and their oversized administrative fiefdoms, we wouldn't need to worry about another tax increase.

This sounds like nothing more than another scam for new taxes.