The Trib brings some news about the impending school finance lawsuits. Yes, lawsuits – there are two in the works.
The Equity Center’s lawsuit will focus on fairness, attacking the target revenue system established in 2006 when lawmakers reduced the property tax rate and guaranteed that districts would get no less than the amount they received per student at that time. That stopgap has since become permanent, resulting in an arbitrary funding scheme in which neighboring school districts can have as much as a $7,000 difference in state spending per student — and, the Equity Center will argue, is wildly inefficient.
Many of the state’s 1,030 school districts, like its largest, Houston ISD, whose school board will take up the question at its meeting on Oct. 13, have yet to decide whether they will join a suit. But as of Tuesday, 139 districts — a mix of suburban, rural and inner-city schools of varying sizes, though they are primarily low- to middle-property wealth — have joined the Equity Center’s coalition of schools. In addition to schools, Executive Director Wayne Pierce said they also eventually plan to include taxpayers like business owners and parents in the suit as well.
See here, here, and here for some background. School Zone has a list of the districts that have signed on so far. I will be very interested to see if HISD joins in. I hope they do.
[Attorney David] Thompson’s group will focus primarily on adequacy and property tax issues, arguing that not only has the state failed to dedicate enough money to public education for schools to meet increasingly rigorous accountability standards, but that in doing so, it has not given local districts enough choice in how to spend or whether to raise property taxes — in effect, instituting an unconstitutional statewide property tax.
“Educational standards are continuing to go up, but the revenue is flat-lined — and in this session it’s gone down,” said Rickey Dailey, a spokesman for the Texas School Coalition, a group that represents “Chapter 41,” or property wealthy districts that send money back to the state through Robin Hood laws.
Seems to me both groups have strong cases. Ultimately, whatever the courts say – and nobody knows what they’ll do – it will be up to the Lege to fix it. They seem to like being ordered to take action rather than doing it themselves. They’re likely to get their chance soon.