School funding in Texas

The El Paso Times today ran a story about the state's system of financing schools.

Below is a more detailed breakdown of the second tier of funding mentioned in the story:

A second tier of funding gives districts additional money if they are able to raise taxes above the $1 rate.

Under this formula the state has set the value of the first six additional pennies of taxes at about $60 per student per penny. That means if a district raises its tax rate by a penny and is able to get about $35 per student from the increase, the state would pay $25 per student to close the gap.

There is a caveat that allows wealthier districts to bring in more money. For example, a school district might increase its tax rate by a penny and get $200 per student in local property taxes from the new rate. It would not receive extra funding from the state but would be allowed to keep all of the money it collects, giving it essentially $140 more per student than districts that get the state help.

Those rules cover a tax increase of up to $1.06.

Districts can get a smaller portion of state funding on taxes that they levy up to $1.17. The state would supplement taxes earned for each penny to help the district get about $32 per student. Under this formula wealthy districts have to return money to the state once their property tax base exceeds $319,500 per student.

El Paso Independent school district gets about $14.6 million in the supplemental state funding. Ysleta receives about $15.2 million and Socorro gets about $10 million.

Comments

[XPatrio]

Why is Gov. Perry surgar coating all this and not even addressing the budget but pushing priority legislation such as Voter ID and such. How is he going to balance the budget?

[Rob D'Amico]

Thanks for a great story. It seems no matter how many times reporters outline there's a structural deficit created in 2006, people still don't get it. The friends I query about this are completely clueless. It's the legislative leadership that put us in this mess today. Had we come out with a tax situation that was sound, we would be facing a shortfall from the economy that would be much more manageable, particularly using the Raicy Day Fund.

On class sizes, we'll be fighting back with http://www.22to1.org