“THIS IS A PROPERTY TAX INCREASE”

Recently I was looking at a proposition for a bond issue election and I noticed that the language of the proposition included the statement “THIS IS A PROPERTY TAX INCREASE”. I was surprised at this since many times bond issues are passed with a proposition which does not have a property tax increase or a property tax rate increase. However, I learned that the Texas legislature in the 2019 legislative session included a provision in House Bill 3 which required this language on a school bond proposition. The bill amended Section 45.003 of the Texas Education Code to require this language in each proposition on a bond election ballot, whether that statement is true or not. This is simply wrong!

What this requirement tells me is that the Texas legislature is not a supporter of public education. Bond issue elections are voted on by the local residents of a school district and they are the ones to decide whether a school bond issue passes or not. The legislature should stay out of it and let the local people decide. Yet the Texas legislature, controlled by Republicans, do not want to leave decisions to local voters, but they want to influence these elections by requiring a statement that may or may not be true of what the impact of a bond election might have on property taxes. The Republican controlled legislature is always crying when the federal government imposes something on them and they accuse the federal government of not allowing local state control. Well, they are doing the same thing to local school districts and boards of trustees when they impose such a requirement on school bond propositions that are put on a ballot by locally elected board members, and must be approved by local voters.

Many times school bond elections are passed and the passage does not require a tax rate increase because previous bonds are being paid off or previous bonds are being re-financed. This is done by local districts to keep the tax rate lower and allow needed bonds to pass without a tax rate increase. A district may pass a bond issue and the tax rate may not increase; however, the property tax on a property could increase if the value of that property has increased. But to require the statement on a proposition that “THIS IS A PROPERTY TAX INCREASE” may or may not be true depending on whether the property increases or decreases in value, even though the bond issue did not cause a tax rate increase.

The inclusion of this provision in H.B. 3 which was supposed to be a bill that improved school finance and school funding, which it did, is simply deceptive and wrong. It shows very clearly that those who knew this provision was in the bill were not being supportive of public schools improving their facilities or building new schools, although the local patrons may have been very supportive. I am sure many legislators did not even know this provision was in the bill. It is an anti-public education provision! Very clearly, the Texas legislature does not want schools to pass bond issues, even going to the point of being deceptive by requiring inclusion of a statement that could or could not be a true statement! This is not support of public education!