Fort Bend ISD Proposes 3.5 cent Tax Increase

Coming on the heals of a Fort Bend Central Appraisal District policy of raising the appraised values of property in the county by an average of 10.8% at a time when property value – and home sales - are sharply lower due to the recession, now we hear that the Fort Bend ISD school board wants to raise their tax rate by 3.5 cents per $100 assessed value.

When will these tax and spend Democrats ever learn? When in a tough economic downturn, the last thing you want to do is raise taxes.

Oh, no . . . wait. Fort Bend County is still firmly in the hands of the Republican Party isn’t it. Republicans still dominate county government. A Republican majority still sits on the school board.

So much for making generalities based on party affiliation.

Because just as it happened at the federal level, where Republicans opened up the hen house doors and let the foxes have full run of the place – putting us all in a very uncomfortable spot, so has it happened at the local level.

At the local level county government has granted an obscene amount of property tax breaks to businesses so that they will move into the county. Trouble is, when you grow the county, county expenses go up. Roads need to be built and maintained. Infrastructure needs to support new growth. Where to get the funds for all of this if you can’t get it from the very entities responsible for the new costs? Get it from those who are already here.

But since Fort Bend County is run by the Republican Party, don’t make it look like you are raising taxes. Raise the assessed values.

Never mind the fact that home insurance companies will take these new values and raise their premiums as well.

Never mind that Fort Bend ISD will also take these new assessed values as the meter against which they assess their taxes.

Truthfully, the school board is between a rock and a hard place. They have to service a debt that was taken on during an unprecedented growth period (partly, courtesy of the county’s tax abatement policies), and have had to adopt a budget where more is being spent than coming in. Fort Bend ISD runs on a net deficit budget.

Given all of this, and given that the district is severely limited in the number of areas where it can make budget cuts, they don’t really have any choice here.

That won’t stop the tax-averse right wingers from coming out in force for this evening’s bi-weekly school board meeting. They will be there. These people who demand a first-rate education for their children, but simply don’t want to pay for it, will be there shaking their fingers at people who really don’t have much of a choice here.

Really, it is better to lay the blame where all of these problems originate. Place the blame for this mess where it truly needs to be placed. Place the blame at the feet of a pro-business, anti-homeowner county government.

And start thinking about getting these rascals booted out of office.