TaxparencyTexas is a grassroots effort initiated by public school districts acting on behalf of their schools.
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The focus of this endeavor is to educate and inform the public about the collection and allocation of local school property tax revenue.
What is Taxparency?
Taxparency: the condition of being transparent with respect to taxpayer dollars.
Why is Taxparency an Issue?
- Texas taxpayers are not aware that public school districts get very little, if any, additional operating revenue when property values rise.
- At the same time, according to the outgoing chairman of the Texas House’s Public Education Committee, the Legislature is spending more than $2 billion a year that would have gone to public education on other programs and services in the state budget.
We think that Taxpayers should know…
- State funding for education has decreased. Compared to 2017, state funding is $339 less per student than in 2008, and $795 less per student when adjusted for inflation.
Source: Constant Dollar per student funding and its change over time is based upon the State Aid per Average Daily Attendance found on Figure 169 in the LBB Fiscal Size Up Report 2016-17. The annual inflation value is applied to each of these figures to calculate the inflation adjusted change over time.
- The State is using new property value growth and Robin Hood funds from local school property taxes to reduce its own contribution to education.
The State reduced its contribution to education by $900 million in 2014-15 and $1.4 billion in 2016-17 to fund state priorities outside of education.
- The portion of local school taxes that is used by the State to reduce its contribution to education for use in other parts of the state budget is not transparent to the Taxpayer.