A reelection campaign pledge by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is a further attempt to “eliminate public education,” according to Charles Foster Johnson, executive director of Pastors for Texas Children.
In announcing his unusual bid for a fourth term as governor Nov. 9, Abbott laid out an ambitious six-point plan for property tax reform. The sixth point of his plan calls for eliminating property taxes that fund local school districts.
Currently, local property taxes are the largest single source of funding for Texas public schools, accounting for about 48% of total school funding. The remaining funding comes from state sources (about 34%) and the federal government (about 18%).
Texas is one of nine U.S. states with no income tax, which means most local services must be funded by sales taxes, property taxes and user fees. Texas consistently ranks among states with the highest property tax rates in the country. The average property tax in Texas is 1.8%, higher than the national average of 1.1%. Property tax rates are set at the local level and vary widely.
Proponents of the property taxes point out the countervailing benefit of living in a state with no income tax.
Charles Foster Johnson
Property tax reform is a perennial political topic in Texas and a favorite especially of fiscal conservatives who believe all government spending is overgrown. But Abbott’s call not just to reform but to eliminate property taxers that fund public schools is about more than tax policy, said Johnson, a longtime Baptist pastor and ally for public schools.
“It is no surprise that Greg Abbott wants to eliminate property taxes,” he explained. “The unavoidable conclusion from his policies is that he wants to eliminate public education. His entire tenure has been marked by defunding classrooms, over-testing children, expanding charter schools, shifting local control to Austin and subsidizing private schools through vouchers.
“His tax plan is shifty indeed; he knows the state funding stream which is flowing now will dry up someday soon, after he has stripped communities of their authority to levy tax support for their community schools. Texans need to wake up to the indisputable fact that Greg Abbott is failing ‘to make suitable provision for public free schools’ as the Texas Constitution clearly demands.”
Abbott’s plan would replace property taxes for schools with “state-level funding mechanisms, most likely through surplus revenue or a restructured consumption-based model,” according to Texas Policy Research, a nonpartisan fiscally conservative watchdog group.
“His tax plan is shifty indeed.”
While the governor’s plan is possible, it would be incredibly difficult to bring about, TPR says. “Achieving this goal would require unprecedented legislative cooperation and a clear, sustainable replacement framework.”
Most importantly, the change would move control of funding for public schools to the state level rather than the local level. Abbott and his Republican allies in the Legislature, having consolidated state power, are on a campaign to reduce local control over all manner of things. The state’s Republican base dominates rural areas while Democrats control all the state’s metro areas except Fort Worth. And the state went six years without increasing funding for public schools; that cycle was broken this year as part of a deal Abbott wanted to create a private school voucher plan.
Other parts of Abbott’s proposal include requiring a two-thirds supermajority requirement for any local tax increase; creating a statutory limit on local government spending growth tied to the lesser of population plus inflation or 3.5%; allowing citizens to petition for elections that roll back local tax rates; creating a five-year cycle for property tax appraisals rather than the annual appraisals most commonly used now; and lowering the appraisal cap to 3% annually and apply it to all property, including commercial and rental properties. Currently, homestead properties are limited to a 10% annual increase in taxable value, while other property types face no cap at all.
From a consumer perspective, TPR commends Abbott’s plan: “We compiled data from the Texas Comptroller’s public records that show total property tax levies in Texas have increased by more than 360% since 1998, while the combined growth of population and inflation has risen by only about 150%. School district property taxes alone account for over half of this growth, having risen more than 400% during the same period. The result is that Texans today pay the highest property tax burden in the state’s history, far outpacing their ability to pay.”
Basing school funding so heavily on property taxes creates a “de facto wealth tax that punishes both homeowners and renters,” TPR believes.
In addition to Pastors for Texas Children, others opposing Abbott’s plan include public school officials; education advocacy groups such as Texas AFT; editorial boards of the Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle; and most Democrats. Even some conservatives, such as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, have dismissed the idea of eliminating school property taxes as a “joke” or “fantasy.”