By a wide margin, voters today approved a 13-cent tax rate increase proposed by the Hutto Independent School District to avoid more significant budget cuts.
With all precincts reporting, the vote was 854 for and 427 against — a 66 percent to 33 percent margin.
Voter interest in the tax-ratification election was high in early voting. Nearly 1,000 voters cast ballots in early voting that ended Aug. 28, and they voted overwhelmingly for the proposal.
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“This is a definite mandate from our community to continue to provide excellence in academics, character and community,” said Hutto school board President Doug Gaul. “It gets us focused back on what’s important — providing a quality education for our students.”
Hutto school district Superintendent Doug Killian thanked voters “for stepping up when the state wouldn’t,” referring to the Legislature’s more than $5.4 billion in cuts to public education in 2011.
Let’s hope voters remember that in November. If it wasn’t for the neglect at the state level – after all this kind of thing is exactly why the “Rainy Day Fund” was created – this wouldn’t have been necessary.
The Hutto Independent School District Board of Trustees has called a Tax Ratification Election (TRE) for September 1, 2012. (The schedule for early voting is August 15, 16, 17 18, & 20 at Hutto High School.)
Hutto ISD has put up an FAQ about the TRE. The two most informative questions and answers are those regarding what Hutto ISD has already cut, and what they will have to cut if the TRE fails.
What has the district done to reduce the budget to date?
Most recently, the Board of Trustees voted to decrease the number of music and art teachers at the elementary level to one teacher per two campuses, effectively reducing the amount of art and music time a student would receive during the school year. The approval also included increasing the extra-curricular/co-curricular fee to a $100 one-time fee from $25 or $12.50/$2.50 for students who qualify for reduced/free lunch; restructuring the district library program; replacing two Licensed Vocational Nurse positions with Nurse Aides; and reducing elementary counselors by two positions. Counselors will be shared between elementary campuses, similar to the art and music programs. The increased extra-curricular/co-curricular fee will not be discounted for students who qualify for reduced/free lunch. Each of these decisions could be reversed if the district receives more funds through a tax ratification election.
Other approvals include eliminating middle school assistant principal interns; reducing technology items, including district-wide cabling projects, instructional technology funding and technical professional development; reducing central office staff professional development and supplies; and 10 percent department and campus budget reductions across the district. None of these items will be restored if the district receives more funds through a tax ratification election.
In January 2011, Veterans’ Hill Elementary was closed and fifth grade students were moved to the middle school campuses for a savings of $990,000 per year. Approximately 70 positions were eliminated, including 31 teaching units, 21 support staff and a 25% cut to central administration for a savings of $2,670,000; campus budgets were reduced by 10% for a savings of $390,000; maintenance and operations expenditures were cut, including cuts to save on electricity and operating costs, transportation limits were extended to a 2-mile radius, the school resource officer program was reduced by one officer and several leases and contracts were canceled or restructured; programs, including the dyslexia and intervention teacher programs, were restructured, resulting in loss of staff and support for teachers and students. This list is not all-inclusive. Many other cuts were made and will continue to be made to aggressively save money for the district.
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Where does the district plan to cut if additional cuts are required?
While cuts have been made for the coming school year, if Proposition 1, held Sept. 1, 2012, does not pass, HISD will need to further trim its operating budget by $1.4 million for the 13-14 school year. This would translate to nearly $7 million in budget cuts over a three-year period. While the district has not yet decided specific actions on where to cut, additional cuts could include: Increase the average class sizes district-wide for grades K-12; increase the Co-Curricular, extracurricular student participation fees; No band travel to away football games; reduce number of custodians district-wide; reduce summer school services; declare financial exigency and initiate furlough days, effectively closing schools on particular days and reducing staff pay; reduction of additional staff through attrition; additional 2-5% reduction in department/campus budgets; and implementing a bus transportation fee. More drastic measures could include multi-track year round school to allow for the closure of an additional campus, sharing assistant principals at the middle school level, further reductions in programs and staff, elimination of certain sports and increased fees for programs.
Those are cuts that will really hurt the education of students in Hutto ISD. It’s a reminder of how the neglect of our leaders at the state level trickles-down, and causes dire consequences at the local level.
Trustees will ask Hutto Independent School District voters again to decide whether to raise the district’s tax rate during a September election.
After a public hearing Thursday night on the budget and tax rate, Hutto ISD school board members approved a tax rate of $1.67 per $100 valuation to support next year’s budget of $38 million.
That rate is 13 cents higher than the district’s current rollback rate, which means the district has to get voter approval to raise the maintenance and operations portion of tax rate. The Tax Ratification Election is set for September 1.
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Residents were on hand who are part of the newly formed Hippos United, a group which started as a Public Action Committee to support the TRE election, but now has morphed into a 501(c)4 non-profit organization to support a variety of causes. While the organization can support issues, it cannot support a particular candidate, according to organizers.
Kris Andrews, who has two children in the district and now serves as vice president of Hippos United, said he wants to ensure the community is involved in helping address the district’s financial crisis.
“On issues like this, we really need to bring the community back to the solution,” Andrews said before the meeting. “This is a problem for all of us, and the solution being presented here at the school district and being voted on at the ballot box, a lot of people see as not a personal issue, and the future of our kids is definitely a personal issue for all of us.”
Andrews also addressed the board saying he would support the district as it faced hard financial times.
“The future of Hutto, and for me, is our kids,” he said.
Another Hippos United member, Kelly Farmer, said she got involved in order to help dispel some of the misconceptions being presented through social media by outside PACs. With four children in the district, Farmer said she felt the family had found a gem in the Hutto school district.
“I really want to support this district being successful,” Farmer said.
If the TRE fails and more is chopped from the budget, she said she worries her children will lose out on the things that make them well-rounded, such as field trips, extracurricular opportunities and intervention when needed, she said.
“They get only one shot,” Farmer said. “There is no redo button on an education.”
Not everyone at the meeting was on board with approving a tax rate increase, however. Phil Longo, who has lived in Hutto since 2008, said while he sees the district’s plight, he does not feel most residents are in a position to pay more.
“I understand the plight, believe me,” Longo told trustees. “I think we’re at a point where we’re going to have to bite the bullet.”
Longo, who is retired, said he moved to Hutto from California to be closer to his daughter and her family.
“I get the exact same retirement check I got in 1995,” Longo said before the meeting. “I don’t have a well to go to.”
Hutto ISD Public Information Officer Emily Grobe said for Hutto ISD residents over the age of 65, a tax ceiling could apply that would mean they may not pay more with the rate increase. Longo, however, also was concerned about the burden on younger generations as well, he said.
Here’s a link the the Hippos United web site. The TRE is the only option left for the ISD board to avoid making devastating cuts to education in Hutto.
Several weeks after Hutto school district officials said they would ask voters to approve a property tax increase, at least three other Williamson County districts are talking about following suit.
Georgetown officials are mulling an Oct. 9 election, seeking a 4-cent increase to $1.08 per $100 of appraised value.
The Taylor and Florence districts would raise the portion of the tax rate that goes toward operations by a few cents while simultaneously lowering the rate on debt. In this scenario, homeowners, whose tax bills would otherwise have gone down, would pay about what they paid the previous year.
Hutto already has called for a Sept. 1 vote to raise the tax rate by 13 cents to $1.17 for operations — the maximum allowed by law.
The potential slew of tax elections comes as districts are adopting budgets after a second year of deep state cuts. Among district administrators, the mantra is that further cuts will begin affecting student services and classrooms, and the community needs to decide whether they want those changes.
Perry, Dewhurst, Schwertner, Gonzales and others brag about holding the line on state taxes, but they have simply passed the buck. To avoid even deeper cuts in educational services, many school districts have been asking local voters for property tax increases, and Williamson County is no exception.
Voters in Hutto ISD rejected a local tax increase last year, but budget-strapped school trustees are trying again. They have scheduled a Sept. 1 election to raise school maintenance taxes by 13 cents per $100 valuation, twice the increase they sought last year. If this election also fails, other cuts to Hutto schools will be looming.
Other Williamson County districts – including Georgetown, Taylor and Florence — also are considering tax elections, as reported in the story linked below.
No, folks, there is no such thing as a free lunch. But elections do have consequences.
The schools certainly need the money and the buck has, no doubt, been passed to the local ISD’s. What’s not so sure is whether the local voters see any need to raise taxes. Voters in Hutto have already proven they don’t.
It’s now a fact that the majority of people who vote in Texas and those they elect want to defund public education. In other words this is all just part of the plan.
Democratic state representatives say if the economy is improving then let’s re-fund public education, Dems, GOP debate school funds.
Texas has added 440,000 payroll jobs since December 2009, which John Heleman, chief revenue estimator for Texas Comptroller Susan Combs, identified as the recession’s low point during a House Appropriations Committee hearing Tuesday.
Sales tax revenue for the first five months of the state’s fiscal year is up 11 percent over the same period last year, he said.
“It looks like the Texas consumer is back. They are buying,” Heleman said of the growth in revenue from the sales tax, the state’s single largest revenue source outside of the federal government.
Oil production tax revenue has increased 47 percent over the same period last year, Heleman said. The state ended the fiscal year last fall with a $1.6 billion surplus, and he estimated the state’s rainy day fund to contain $7.3 billion by the end of the current budget cycle.
The Legislature cut public school funding by $2 billion over what existing law would have provided this year, and another $2 billion will be cut next year.
With the economic recovery accelerating, Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, wondered why lawmakers can’t restore funding to public schools.
“Right now, we have a lot of schools that are hurting,” the committee vice chairman said. “We need to consider how we are going to address the needs of our schoolchildren.”
After the hearing, committee member Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, said it’s become apparent that last year’s public school education cuts will become permanent.
In addition to a $4 billion cut in basic school funding, Villarreal said another $2 billion deferral payment to the next fiscal year means public education will start the next legislative session in a $6 billion hole.
Public education funding will play a big role in the elections later this year, he said.
“The only way to change the priorities in the Capitol is to change out members of the Legislature,” Villarreal said.
Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, said there’s no appetite among his GOP House colleagues for a special legislative session to avoid more public education funding cuts. Perry could call one after the next regular session to deal with school finance litigation now in the courts, Pitts said.
“Until we get some direction from the courts, we’re flying blind,” he said.
But in the interview a few hours later, Perry declared: “No special session. We’re not going to have a special session.”
“I appreciate all of the legislators’ input, but I would be stunned if there is an outcry from the people of this state or, for that matter, a majority of the members of the Legislature that want to come back in here and have a special session when I don’t think we need one,” Perry said.
And the Texas Democratic Party is holding Larry Gonzales Responsible for School Closure, Teacher Lay-Offs in His District. Read full press release below in extended entry.
Cutting out field trips, charging students to ride the bus and hiking up the price to play sports are just a few of the things the Hutto school district will talk to parents about this week in an effort to shave $1.2 million off next year’s budget.
The district is hosting two public meetings to help prioritize a four-page list of potential cuts and money-making solutions. The meetings are Monday and Wednesday at the Hutto High School Performing Arts Center, located at 101 FM 685.
Community input will help the school district gauge what people want to save and what the district can live without. The additional cuts follow $4.5 million in previous cuts made for the current school year, which resulted in roughly 70 layoffs, the closure of Veteran’s Hill Elementary and many other cost-saving measures.
There will be another public meeting tomorrow at the Performing Arts Center at 6:30pm. And here’s a link to a survey if you can’t make tomorrow’s hearing.
The bus fee alone, $200/per child, per year, is quite a bit of money. More than likely much less than what the tax increase, that was voted down in November, would have cost. Nothing like reality to focus people’s attention on the next election. Hopefully the families in Hutto that are hardest hit by these new fees will remember who brought this about.
Gov. Rick Perry should call Texas legislators back to the Capitol for a special session to spare more public school cuts next year now that the economic recovery is producing more revenue than expected, a teachers group said Wednesday.
The state ended the 2011 budget year with a $1.1 billion surplus, Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, noted and the current budget cycle is expected to produce another $1.6 billion surplus.
Perry should ask lawmakers to tap into the state’s $7.3 billion rainy day fund to avoid more school layoffs and larger class sizes next year, Howard and Texas State Teachers Association President Rita Haecker said.
The Republican-controlled Legislature last year cut $5.4 billion from public education for the current two-year budget, which forced school districts to cut about 32,000 school employees, including 12,000 teachers, Haecker said.
More than 8,200 elementary classes are larger than the cap set by state law.
“It is time to stop the bleeding and stop the cuts, now,” she said.
There’s little likelihood that Perry will call legislators into a special legislative cuts to spare more school cuts next year.
“There are no plans to call a special session on this or any other issue. Thanks to Gov. Perry’s fiscally conservative leadership Texas has a balanced budget and has increased funding to Texas public schools by billions of dollars,” Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle said.
HISD officials also want to raise money for the district by possibly charging a transportation fee for students riding a bus to school. By charging $100 per semester per student, or $50 for students qualifying for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program, the district can raise approximately $150,000. The district will cap the amount for families who have more than two children at $200 per semester, Boswell said.
District officials could increase the newly instituted extracurricular fee for students competing in middle school and high school University Interscholastic League events. The current fees are charged on a sliding scale starting with a $25 yearly fee for a student to participate in unlimited activities. Students qualifying for federal reduced lunch programs are charged $12.50 and for students on free lunch the fee is $2.50.
These extracurricular fees could increase to $100 for the average student, $50 for students qualifying for reduced-price lunch programs and $25 for student qualifying for free-lunch programs.
Tier Two cuts total approximately $345,000 and include such measures as eliminating some custodians and transportation workers, and two elementary art and music positions.
Tier Three cuts total approximately $834,000 and include such measures as cross country and powerlifting to become self-sufficient sports, eliminating two band assistant positions and eliminating four elementary receptionist positions.
Tier One through Three cuts total approximately $1.9 million.
And, of course, all these cuts and fees will exact much more pain on working and middle class families.
Some high-profile members of the education community aren’t pleased with Texas Education Agency Commissioner Robert Scott’s speech on Tuesday criticizing the role of testing in Texas public schools.
Speaking to 4,000 school officials at the Texas Association of School Administrators’ annual midwinter conference, Scott received a standing ovation when he called for an accountability system that measured “what happens on every single day in the life of a school besides testing day.” He also said that he would not certify a ban on social promotion next year unless schools received more money from the state to offer remedial classes to students.
Uncertainty about student performance on the rigorous new state STAAR exams has caused concern across the state as schools also grapple with a $5 billion-plus reduction in state funding that lawmakers enacted during the last legislative session.
“I think he owes all of the legislators an explanation of his comments,” said state Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, a chief architect of the legislation that created STAAR. Shapiro, the chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, said she was “blown away” by the commissioner’s remarks in light of his repeated testimony during the legislative session that schools would have enough money to move forward with STAAR.
“That’s a direction I’ve never heard him take,” she said, adding, “He’s been the one that’s been talking about school accountability over the years. We’ve all been a part of this. School accountability is something we started many, many years ago, and we believe in it.”
Teaching to a test is not accountability. Most people know that we can’t treat our children, students, can’t be treated like widgets. And how a person is being educated is much more subjective than how someone does on a standardized test. That’s why we need quality teachers and a strong public education system.
“I don’t think I can figure out what went wrong,” Hutto Superintendent Doug Killian said. “At this point, I have to figure out how to make it work for our district. I don’t just want to be able to run efficiently — I want it to be successful. I can make these cuts, but will it run well when I do?”
The Hutto school district adopted a $37 million budget for the 2011-12 school year after cutting $4.5 million. Veterans Hill Elementary School was shuttered. Fifth grade was moved to middle school to make room at the remaining elementary campuses and 70 employees were let go, including a quarter of central office administrators.
Every option is back on the table because the district will need to find $2.1 million more in reductions, Killian said.
“We’re going to have to take a little more from all areas to make it work,” Killian said. “I do see this will impact our classrooms.”
There’s no fat left, they’re going to have to start cutting into muscle. And that even means fewer teachers, and even larger class sizes, as the student population continues to grow. Hutto is a community with more than 9,000 registered voters, and less than 750 voters turned out, and voted (575 – 43%) against raising property taxes by 6 cents/$100 of property valuation to fund public education.
Where does the district plan to cut if additional cuts are required?
If the November 2011 TRE does not pass, HISD will need to further trim it’s operating budget by $1.2 million for the 12-13 school year. This would translate to $5.7 million in budget cuts over a two-year period. While the district has not yet decided specific actions on where to cut, additional cuts could include: Increase the average class sizes district-wide for grades K-12; increase the Co-Curricular, extracurricular student participation fees; No band travel to away football games; reduce number of custodians district-wide; reduce summer school services; initiate a hiring freeze; reduction of additional staff through attrition; additional 2-5% reduction in department/campus budgets; and to begin charging to bus students.
Yesterday’s results were mixed at best. Locally the results couldn’t have been worse. The Hutto ISD Tax Ratification Election (TRE) failed by a 57% – 43% margin – 742 votes were cast in that election. Here’s the likely results, from what the ISD stated before the election in it’s FAQ.
Where does the district plan to cut if additional cuts are required?
If the November 2011 TRE does not pass, HISD will need to further trim it’s operating budget by $1.2 million for the 12-13 school year. This would translate to $5.7 million in budget cuts over a two-year period. While the district has not yet decided specific actions on where to cut, additional cuts could include: Increase the average class sizes district-wide for grades K-12; increase the Co-Curricular, extracurricular student participation fees; No band travel to away football games; reduce number of custodians district-wide; reduce summer school services; initiate a hiring freeze; reduction of additional staff through attrition; additional 2-5% reduction in department/campus budgets; and to begin charging to bus students.
And in the city of Round Rock voters opted for higher hotel taxes to pay for a new sports facility, and will shift money previously allotted for transportation projects to be spent on so-called “economic development” projects instead.
The county wide turnout was 6.83%. See the final Williamson County results here.
Statewide all but three propositions passed (4, 7, and 8). Proposition 4 which would have allowed the state to shirk it’s transportation funding responsibility onto local entities went down in a heap, losing by a margin of 60% – 40%.
The statewide turnout was around 5.30%. See the final statewide results here.
The turnout is the worst part of yesterday’s election. It should also be remembered the next time you hear state legislative leaders talk about putting issues on the ballot for the people of Texas to decide. The off-year, low turnout, elections are no way to gunge the mood of the people in the state on these issues. Legislators know that these elections are an opportunity to try and “sneak” controversial issues by the people, and shift the blame for these policies onto the voters who ratify them. (More on that soon). It’s also no way to run a democracy.
The results were not entirely unexpected. But the margins and the uniformity of last night’s election results tell an important story going into 2012. Across the country, Republican overreach coming out of the 2010 election was decisively rejected by voters in multiple states.
More Than 100 School Districts Join Equity Center Litigation Effort
(AUSTIN, TX) – More than 100 school districts across Texas have officially joined the Equity Center’s legal fight for fair funding for all Texas taxpayers and students. By passing a board resolution, these districts have formally recognized the crucial need to change the state’s unfair and inefficient school funding system.
Plaintiff districts range from large to small, urban to rural, and the number grows daily as school boards commit to join the effort. A complete list of Equity Center plaintiff districts will be released next week following the statewide school board convention in Austin.
Because the Legislature has failed to adopt a rational and efficient system that treats all Texas taxpayers and children fairly as required by the Texas Constitution, districts believe now is the time to take legal action. Given the disparities in student funding and taxpayer equity, these districts have a strong case and their position cannot be ignored.
For example, per student funding across Texas ranges from under $5,000 to over $10,000, even though state accountability standards are applied to all children uniformly.
Dr. Wayne Pierce, Executive Director, explains it this way: “We believe litigation is the only way to ensure taxpayer equity and a quality education for Texas children. We must litigate for a school finance system that makes sense and is fair to all children, taxpayers, and districts.”
The Equity Center is a non-profit advocacy organization that was founded in 1982 to promote fair funding for all Texas school districts, regardless of their wealth. In addition to serving as a resource for every school finance lawsuit in recent history, the Equity Center regularly educates its 690 member school districts and the public on school funding issues and works closely with the Texas Legislature to promote policy that treats all Texas children and taxpayers fairly.
The problems we are having, once again, in funding education in Texas has to do with who (the rich) and what (income) we do, and more likely do not, tax. To fund public education in Texas we do it mostly through a property tax. Everyone should know by now that this system’s success was predicated on ever-rising real estate prices. While Texas has not had a bust, as many states in the nation have, there’s certainly been a slow decline, if not a stagnation, in Texas real estate prices. And that has caused some, but by no means all, of the current school finance problems.
Hutto ISD will join a lawsuit attacking the state’s school finance system and seeking equity for Texas students and taxpayers.
The Hutto Independent School District Board of Trustees voted Thursday night to become named plaintiffs, along with hundreds of other schools districts, parents, students and individual taxpayers, in a lawsuit to be filed by the Equity Center. The Center is an organization founded in 1982 by school districts as a response to what they deemed to be gross inequities in the state’s school finance system.
To cover costs associated with litigation, districts have been asked to commit $1 per Weighted Daily Average Attendance, or WADA, which amounts to about $5,992 for students in Hutto ISD.
“I’m not a big fan of suing the state,” trustee Phillip Boutwell said, “but I don’t think they’re going to change school finance unless somebody forces their hand.”
The litigation will focus on the Texas Legislature’s failure to fund enrollment growth for the first time since 1949 and seeks to address inequities inherent in the current school funding system, according to an Aug. 26 letter written by Wayne Pierce, executive director of the Equity Center.
Those inequities include a target revenue calculation method that favors wealthy districts, the Equity Center claims, as well as a property tax bias that creates dollar and tax gaps, causing districts in lower-wealth districts to receive less funding per student thus putting those students at a disadvantage.
The Center claims distribution of state funds using the target revenue system is arbitrary, with no “rhyme or reason” as to why comparable districts receive varying amounts of state funding.
“Under our [state] constitution, if a legislative scheme has no rational basis, it is unconstitutional,” Pierce writes. “This is a claim that has not been addressed by our Supreme Court because no funding scheme has ever been so irrational.”
That why in n a previously fast-growing district like Hutto, which added quite a bit of debt to build new schools, the bill is coming due, and the tax money is not coming as it once did to pay the bill.
The current system not only puts lower-wealth districts at a disadvantage, it punishes high-growth districts as well, according to Hutto ISD Superintendent Dr. Doug Killian.
Saddled with high debt due to construction of buildings to accommodate a once fast-growing population, Hutto ISD is prevented by law from taxing more than 50-cents per $100 valuation to make payments on its mounting debt. The district currently is maxed at the 50-cent rate and was already running a budget deficit prior to additional state funding cuts made in the last session, causing Hutto ISD to carve out $4 million in operations expenses to balance its budget.
“We are one of the districts that has been hurt pretty drastically by the cuts,” Killian said. “Our hope is that we might be working our way through the court system in 2013 when the Legislature is in session.”
Taylor ISD was one of the first to join the lawsuit.
Taylor ISD just to the east of Hutto was one of the first districts to sign on to the Equity Center’s litigation. At its Aug. 29 meeting, the Taylor ISD Board of Trustees gave unanimous approval to join the lawsuit and make an investment of $4,030 to help cover litigation costs.
Jerry Vaughn, superintendent of TISD, said he was one of the superintendents in the state asked to participate in a meeting in Austin to discuss the lawsuit.
“Various districts across the state are affected by the current financial system,” he said, noting that one of the main issues is the significant disparity between how much higher-wealth school districts receive from the state compared to medium- or lower-wealth districts, like Taylor.
Vaughn went on to explain that in 2005-06, the legislature began a “target revenue” system that is still in place today, which favors property-wealthy school districts and largely freezes education spending at 2005-06 levels, except for enrollment growth.
“Bigger districts are getting more money because of targeted growth,” he said, adding that some districts are receiving as much as $8,000 more than they should.
Perry and the GOP passed a tax swap scheme in 2006 that is defending public education in Texas. The GOP scheme created a multi-billion dollar annual structural budget shortfall. And to cover for that in this past legislative session the GOP dominated legislature cut $4 billion from public education. But Texas and Texans have never made fuding public education fair or a priority. It’s reflected in the politicians that are elected, it’s reflected in the fact that public education has never been fully funded, and that we’ve never created a statewide finance system.
Public education funding will never be fixed in Texas until the state’s constitution is amended and a state income tax is implemented.