Tag Archives: property taxes

Cities and counties prepare to play defense

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

It’s going to be a rough session for cities and counties, who have every reason to believe that a large part of the Lege’s budget-balancing strategy will be to foist expenses on them. “As will all of the big cities … Continue reading →

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There’s still no such thing as a rainy day

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Having been in denial about the size of the budget deficit, Governor Perry goes into denial about how to deal with it. Gov. Rick Perry on Monday said he was opposed to using the state’s rainy day fund to help … Continue reading →

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We have a number for the hole

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

There’s actually more than one number that can be used to accurately describe the state budget deficit, depending on what your perspective is, but however you look at it, it’s big and it’s no longer projected or theoretical. State Comptroller … Continue reading →

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Krugman on the Texas budget deficit

Posted on January 10, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

By now, you’ve probably seen Paul Krugman’s column about the Texas budget deficit. He uses it to make some great points about the failure of the conservative slash-and-burn approach, but he missed a couple of facts that make it all … Continue reading →

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Still more on class size limits

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Real good article in the Press about class size limits and the possible effects of raising them, which I’ve written about before. A couple of points: A famous education study done in Tennessee in the 1980s shows class size matters. … Continue reading →

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These are only “hard choices” for some people

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

I suspect that for too many members of the incoming Legislature, the decisions they’ll be making about the budget will be ones they’re not at all uncomfortable with. The Legislature’s Republican leadership will confront weighty questions, such as how many … Continue reading →

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The mandatory furlough plan

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Happy New Year, city employees. Thousands of city of Houston employees will have to take six unpaid days off in the coming six months, one of a series of actions Mayor Annise Parker is taking to close a $29 million … Continue reading →

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Voluntary to become involuntary

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

That sure didn’t take long. By unanimous vote of City Council, the voluntary furloughs will become involuntary by the end of the year, with Mayor Parker deciding how many enforced unpaid days off are needed to help close the budget … Continue reading →

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Voluntary furloughs

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

I suppose this was inevitable. Mayor Annise Parker announced a voluntary furlough program for civilian employees in December, the first in what may be a series of difficult steps the city must take to close a $30 million budget deficit … Continue reading →

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Do we or do we not have a structural deficit?

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

In this corner, State Rep. Mike Villarreal: In a kerfuffle involving two House members who really like to engage in detailed discussions of Texas’ tax system, Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, sent reporters a letter in which he told Rep. … Continue reading →

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This is what happens when budget cuts are the only tool in your bag

Posted on November 26, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

You get the government you’re willing to pay for. [F]rom Oct. 23 to Oct. 30, [Peter] Wang counted a total of 12 [traffic signal] outages at various intersections, from Barker Cypress down to Telge Road. He initially thought it was … Continue reading →

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The county’s financial picture is pretty grim, too

Posted on November 20, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

This, too, is ugly. County budget officials are looking for more than $130 million in spending cuts for the fiscal year that begins on March 1. Budget officials and county government department chiefs have three months to come up with … Continue reading →

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The deficit debacle

Posted on October 27, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Think things are bad now? Just you wait. Texas faces a budget crisis of truly daunting proportions, with lawmakers likely to cut sacrosanct programs such as education for the first time in memory and to lay off hundreds if not … Continue reading →

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The county’s budget woes

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Don’t look now, but Harris County is running really low on cash. The $154 million reserve fund Harris County started its fiscal year with is expected to be nearly gone by March as it gets spent to cover shortfalls in … Continue reading →

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Them that has, gets

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

This is how it works in this state. Some of Texas’ most vulnerable residents – the very poor, the mentally ill, those suffering from birth defects, and children from troubled families – would lose state support and services under several … Continue reading →

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That sound you hear is another school finance lawsuit coming

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

It may be sooner rather than later, but one way or another it’s coming. Despite numerous challenges and Band-Aids to Texas’ school funding system over the past three decades, school leaders say another school finance lawsuit is imminent. If it … Continue reading →

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Dewhurst the deficit peacock

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst wants you to believe that he cares about deficit spending. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst warned Wednesday that new federal health care legislation will bust Texas’ budget, saddling state taxpayers with $27 billion in extra costs over … Continue reading →

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How much do kids count?

Posted on July 30, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

In Texas, the answer is not much at all. Between 2000 and 2008, the number of Texas kids living in poverty grew by 240,000, accounting for 23 percent of the total child population. The national child poverty rate is 18 … Continue reading →

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Rhetoric is the easy part

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

There are two things that I wonder about as I read this story about poverty and the Texas schools and the alarming trends we’re seeing in things like the dropout rate. First and foremost, will anyone ever listen to former … Continue reading →

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Why we can’t just cut our way out of the budget deficit

Posted on June 5, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

For one thing, there’s very little fat, and not much discretionary spending in the biggest budget items like health and human services. Of the $23 billion in state dollars appropriated in the current budget for health and human services programs, … Continue reading →

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Dallas has it worse than we do

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Houston has its budget proposal for this year, and while it’s no thing of beauty, it’s not got any layoffs, furloughs, or truly drastic cuts in it. The city of Dallas is still working on their budget, and they’re in … Continue reading →

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Business tax falls short again

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Same story, next verse. The state business tax again comes due Monday, and no one is suggesting it will yield near the approximately $6 billion originally forecast. The tax is expected to bring in $4.3 billion this year. “I think … Continue reading →

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We will keep trying the same solutions until they work

Posted on May 13, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Speaker Straus says that all options are on the table for dealing with the budget shortfall, as long as we’re talking about spending cuts. The table isn’t big enough to accommodate any other kind of options. Straus, R-San Antonio, said … Continue reading →

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Mayor Parker’s first budget

Posted on May 12, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

It sounds good, and she kept her promises about not raising the property tax rate, at least for this year, but there are some blanks that still need to be filled in. Mayor Annise Parker unveiled a $4.1 billion spending … Continue reading →

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The Valero effect

Posted on April 24, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

This is just what all of our cash-strapped local budgets need right now. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is not typically a big player in school finance debates. But an upcoming decision by the commission could strike a major … Continue reading →

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Wrapup from “Houston Have Your Say: Education Crisis”

Posted on April 21, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

I thought last night’s broadcast of Houston Have Your Say: Education Crisis went very well. You can see rebroadcasts of the show on Thursday, April 22, at 1:00 am; Friday, April 23, at 8:00 pm; and Sunday, April 25, at … Continue reading →

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The coming train wreck

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Two local school superintendents – HD Chambers from the Stafford Municipal School District and Louis Stoerner from the Alief Independent School District – wrote an op-ed for the Chron about the financial catastrophe that school districts are facing. With a … Continue reading →

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Collecting sales tax on Internet purchases

Posted on April 19, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Tax revenues are down in nearly every state. Most states rely on sales taxes for a significant portion of their revenues. Purchases made over the Internet are generally exempt from sales taxes. You do the math. In recent weeks, legislators … Continue reading →

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The state of the city 2010

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Mayor Parker gave her first State of the City address today before the Greater Houston Partnership. Here are a few highlights from her address, which you can read as written here. We don’t know everything that lies ahead. The pressures … Continue reading →

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First, you have to admit you have a problem

Posted on April 7, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Peggy Fikac has a frustrating conversation with State Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden. I say frustrating because I know he knows what the correct answer to this is, and I also know he’s never going to say it out … Continue reading →

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Whose job is it anyway?

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

This Chron editorial reviews the Weingarten/Alabama BookStop situation, and raises a pertinent issue: Most cities aggressively protect the handful of places that make them special. Houston doesn’t. We offer incentives to make stadium deals work for sports teams. Why not … Continue reading →

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Property tax values drop

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

This budget news is really really bad. Thirty percent of Harris County homes declined in market value this year, as the area’s overall tax base dropped for the first time in at least two decades, officials announced Thursday. The reduced … Continue reading →

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The hole keeps getting deeper

Posted on March 27, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

I’ve said multiple times that even if we survive the 2011 legislative session, the budget problems we’ll be dealing with next year aren’t going away. The reason for that is because we have a structural deficit, as the giant unaffordable … Continue reading →

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Fixing school finance, the neverending story

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Work on dealing with the state’s revenue shortfall and what it will mean for the schools is already underway. Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, co-chair of the 15-member panel, acknowledged that the funding system is in trouble and needs … Continue reading →

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