Rick Perry’s Shady Math Shorts Texas Students

Now here’s the thing, according to Rick Perry’s report card while he was at A&M Perry received a B in Algebra (a course that is taken by 8^th graders these days) and a D in Plane Trigonometry (a 9^th grade course at my workplace).

Rick Perry, you could say, is math-challenged.

So suffice it to say that when Rick Perry cites that the State of Texas is forking out $10,000 per student this year in public school education funds, and so there is no need to have a re-look at next year's education budget, he may not have done his sums very well.

One has to resort to Chinese algebra to come up with that fact.

According to this piece in the Houston Chronicle, Rick Perry thinks we are seeing to our students’ needs just fine thank you very much. A claim that is hotly disputed by TSTA spokesman Clay Robison (TSTA is a Texas teacher’s union much like my beloved AFT).

“Robison cited new rankings and estimates from the National Education Association, which reports that Texas is spending $8,908 per student this school year, based on average daily attendance (ADA).”

“‘That is $538 less than the $9,446 per student Texas was spending in 2010-11, when we ranked 41^st in the country,’ Robison says. ‘The national average of per student expenditure (ADA) for 2010-11 was $11,305. The national average for 2011-12 is $11,463.’”

And guess what, that figure is down from the 2009-10 revenue per student in Texas ($10,630) when Texas was ranked number 36 in the nation.

In short, over the past 3 years Texas education has slowly but surely been put on a starvation diet. Class sizes are up, textbooks are falling apart. But Rick Perry keeps playing his fiddle in his $10,000 per month rented mansion as Texas education faces yet another $2 billion shortfall in the 2012-2013 school year.

People, we are being governed by a guy who thinks SOHCAHTOA is an Indian woman that led Lewis and Clark on their historic expedition to the Pacific Ocean. Perry can’t do the math. Perry has no business in government.

(OK sorry, for the oldsters among us SOHCAHTOA is a mnemonic device for Sine, Opposite over Hypotenuse, Cosine, Adjacent over Hypotenuse, Tangent, Opposite over Adjacent).

Well That’s a Relief, Texas Can Continue to Inadequately Raise Revenue

Late yesterday justices of the Texas Supreme Court, Republicans all, ruled that the business franchise tax was not unconstitutional as alleged by plaintiff Allcat Claims Service LP.

This was a lawsuit that was filed last year that claimed that the 2005 revamp of the Texas tax collection system, a totally inadequate one given the basic necessities of what it must pay for, was unconstitutional because of the 1993 Bullock Amendment, passed by the legislature and agreed upon by Texas voters, that forbade the establishment of an income tax.

Yes, voters voted not to have state income taxes. Do tell.

The court found that this was not a tax on the income of real flesh and blood people, but a tax on an entity.

So we can all breathe a sigh of relief that one of the state’s major sources of revenue, a totally inadequate source of revenue given the current biennial budget shortfall of $28 billion, will not be squished like a cockroach in a corner.

They can continue to raise revenue from businesses, revenue that doesn’t cover costs.

Frankly, I was routing for an overturn of the business tax, not because I want Texas to face a budget crisis like it has never faced before, but because I wanted the legislature to be forced into a corner and finally pass legislation that would adequately fund public school education and Medicaid.

But that’s our Republican Supreme Court, enabling the cutters of government services one more time.

Good News: *Only* 32,000 Teacher Jobs Were Lost This Year

The Austin American-Statesman has a blog post today touting the hopeful results of a Moak, Casey and Associates poll conducted over a portion of the Texas school districts that responded to their poll, and it shows that much, much fewer than 100,000 teacher jobs were lost this past year than predicted.

That is, according to their statistical projection over the entire state, only 32,000 teachers are no longer plying their trade in Texas.

This, the American-Statesman says, was “much, much smaller than the 100,000 school jobs that consultant Lynn Moak estimated would be lost when the 2012-13 budget was first released in January.”

Much, much smaller.

Except it isn’t.

In my recollection, the prediction was for a loss of 100,000 jobs over the life of the present biennial budget.

The article goes on to point out that fewer jobs were lost due to an infusion of cash from the federal government that saved many jobs from extinction. Yes, thanks to the feds, that Governor Rick Perry is “Fed Up” with, fewer Texas teachers were laid off than predicted.

But the truth is, we are not done. Not yet. While this year we saw a $4 billion shortfall in what the state ought to rightly send to its districts, next year the number is $13 billion. And there is no federal money coming next time to help offset some of this funding gap.

So while a $4 billion shortfall resulted in the loss of only 32,000 jobs, a shortfall of three times that without a federal backup translates to a loss of three times that many jobs in 2012 – 2013.

Or more.

Now I keep hearing that revenues are not coming in as predicted by Comptroller Combs. They are actually higher. That’s good. But the fact remains Texas is cutting off its left arm and its right leg in order not to raise revenue to pay for public education – a full frontal assault on public education that, if not countered, spells the end of education in Texas as we know it.

Lawsuits Loom in State Education Finance

According to this item at the Austin American-Statesman, there are three separate theories being argued in three separate lawsuits challenging the 81^st Legislature’s cutting of $4 billion for public education from the current budget – resulting in the layoffs of tens of thousands of public school teachers. That’s nothing. In 2012 it will be a $13 billion cut.

These theories are as follows:

1. The Texas State Constitution, since 1876 requires the Legislature to provide an "efficient system of public free schools." The argument goes that the system is anything but efficient because funding levels are arbitrary, irrational and inequitable.

2. In another lawsuit, ISDs maintain that the Legislature has once again levied a statewide property tax, which is constitutionally prohibited.

3. The third tack holds that funding is inadequate to prepare students to meet the state's standards, “which have been ratcheted up in recent years.”

Duh.

Now here’s the thing. All of this won’t play out until 2013. That is the projected trial schedule. In other words, in 2013 the damage will have been done. More teachers will be chased out of the profession, belts will tighten and it will be all that much more difficult to teach. With NCLB still in force, more and more campuses will not meet their AYP.

Forcing public schools to the private sector, which is exactly the goal of Republicans.

Privatization of public education.

State Rep. Jim Keffer has famously defended his party’s assault on public education in this quote, found at the Austin American-Statesman:

“But that's usually how legislatures work. We do our best when our back is against the wall and the gun is cocked against our head.”

Except that didn’t exactly happen, did it? Or maybe he is referring to the fact that 3 lawsuits are the cocked gun. That works for me.

Only it’s going to be too late, and there is no guarantee the legislature will fix this inequitable system that fails to educate Texas’ schoolchildren.

And that, I think, was also planned.

Why They Won’t Use the Rainy Day Fund

So you’d think that with public education being under funded for by $4 billion, under funded for the first time in the state’s history, you’d think legislators wouldn’t allow that to happen and you’d think they would plug the budget hole with the Rainy Day Fund – something that the fund’s very existence was meant for.

You’d think that as the state sees thousands of teachers being laid off, schools closed and schoolchildren compressed into classrooms, you’d think they would have freed up funds from the Rainy Day Fund.

You’d think.

But they didn’t. And when Donna Howard’s amendment to use anything above the remaining $6 billion crashed and burned at the end of last week because legislators simply will not budge on using any more of the fund for anything, you have to start wondering what is going on here.

Well the answer appears to be that they won’t release any more of the Rainy Day Fund because those funds are actually already spoken for, but no one is willing to confess that.

In order to balance the 2012-2013 budget, you see, the legislature had to under fund what the state is obligated to pay into Medicaid by $4.8 billion. Now this isn’t the same as under funding education. They actually can’t do that to Medicaid. What is hoped is that the feds will change the law by the time the Medicaid bill comes due and the state’s obligation will be less.

But if the law remains unchanged…well then there’s the Rainy Day Fund to bail the state out.

So there you have it. It makes perfect sense to me now why the state is doing this to public education: the cupboard is bare even though everyone says it isn’t.

The cupboard is bare because the legislature kicked the can down the road hoping that the feds won’t kick it back at them.

Will the Nightmare End?

State Senator Wendy Davis (D – Fort Worth) has an op/ed in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram where she summarized the disaster that was the 82^nd Legislature, a disaster that continues in the special session called by Rick Perry so they could, among other things, pass a law that would criminalize body searches in Texas airports.

Her points are well-reasoned and there is a general mood of disappointment that pervades her column. This is how it finishes.

“I think many Texans join me today in feeling deeply disappointed. For the first time in Texas' known history, student enrollment growth will not be funded. The approximately 170,000 new students entering the school system during the new two years will have to be absorbed with fewer resources and fewer teachers.”

“Already ranked 44th nationally in what it spends on education per pupil, Texas' further funding decrease will have a consequence in the classroom, there is no doubt.”

“Perhaps it will have another consequence as well. Just perhaps, in the next election, everyday Texans will let us know that their voices, those of the greater good, are more important than those extremists who currently hold sway in the halls of the Texas Capitol.”

Disappointed? Disillusioned? Disgusted?  Yes, yes and yes. And ready for the legislature to wrap up next week, too.

The Texas Democratic Party has a summary video of the real costs that the GOP super majority visited on us this year.

There Will Be Backlash

I’ve mentioned it on this blog at least a few times that when the 82^nd legislature finally adjourns for the last time here in Texas, things will be far from over for the Republican legislators who voted to cut $4 billion from what they actually were supposed to give to public education for the next budget cycle.

Some Republican legislators are now willing to admit this might be true.

What we’ve seen so far was a reaction from educators and some parents beginning this spring with the Save Our Schools rally that brought over 11,000 protesters to the south steps of the state capitol, followed by smaller rallies and some phone calls. Now people are starting to realize just what I mentioned here, that when parents see what school districts are having to do in order to make ends meet: increased class sizes, decreased resources and support closed schools, new fees for everything, and – heaven help us – renewed efforts to raise local property taxes, they are going to react.

There will be backlash.

Now not everyone is saying this. Some say that the TEA Party is on the rise, not the other way around, and that more and deeper cuts will be de rigueur. But that’s mainly because their only gauge is who has been calling them up on the phone – Tea baggers. No, as this article in the Austin American-Statesman suggests, the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet. That is going to start in August when parents will be paying for the paper their children used to get for free in school. When schools become paperless because all printing will take place at home. It will continue right on through the year as parents pay use fees for every kind of after school activity that were once free. Parents are going to be nickel and dimed and for that honor their children will receive a lower and lower quality education.

That’s when the other shoe will drop, when they realize that elections have consequences and the one that took place last year will have lasting consequences on their children and their children’s future.

And hopefully, next November, Texans will be cured of the amnesia that afflicts them every 6 months or so, and we in education can get back to work.

How the Texas Legislature Can Ignore a Mandate

OH, now I see. I’ve been wondering these past few months how the Texas legislature can ignore a constitutional mandate to provide adequate funding for public education. By passing budget bills that shorts public education by a whopping $4 billion, the legislature seemingly has violated Article 7 Section 1 of the Texas State Constitution which says:

“Sec. 1.  SUPPORT AND MAINTENANCE OF SYSTEM OF PUBLIC FREE  SCHOOLS.  A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”

Seems pretty clear to me that what they did and what they are still trying to do is unconstitutional.

But now I have my answer. It seems that the lawmakers were cognizant of the fact that their budget is unconstitutional, because one of the bills they are working on in the special session is to pass a law making it okey-dokey to underfund public education.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“Written into law is a guarantee that schools would get enough money to provide a basic, foundational education for each student. That obligation has dictated what the state has put into the Foundation School Program to cover growing enrollment and a changing student population.”

“But the school finance plan now under consideration by legislators wipes that guarantee out and makes future appropriations dependent upon how much money is available rather than how much is needed.”

So, OK, they make this constitutional by changing the law that mandates that they fully fund public education. After the fact, but that seems to be the plan.

Now I have a new question and pardon my ignorance. This is a part of the constitution. Changing the wording in the constitution is essentially amending it. Don’t constitutional amendments all have to be approved by the voters?

School District Losses by the Numbers

Want to know exactly what SB 1811 is going to do to your Texas school district’s budget? This is a link to a PDF file of one of the documents that Senator Davis read in her filibuster of that bill. A filibuster that all but caused a special session to be called starting today so that the Senate could consider the bill again, but this time without the 2/3ds rule necessary to bring votes to the Senate floor.

In other words, get ready for this bill to sail through the House and Senate.

I looked at my school district’s loss.

Over $27 million over two years. A 3.7% reduction or a loss of $203 per student. At a 24:1 student teacher ratio and 6 classes taught per classroom, that is a net loss to every classroom in my district of nearly $30,000.

This isn’t in any way the worst case scenario. For reasons that I still cannot fathom, each district receives different allocations and have different percent decreases. Scanning down the right hand column it looks like some school districts will suffer a loss of 8.9% of  their M&O revenue, and some districts are barely touched, with only a 1.3% decrease in revenue.

The major metropolitan districts all get hit hard. Austin ISD will be cut by 8.5%, Dallas ISD by 8.6%, and Houston ISD by 8.7%..

I know what you are thinking. They cut the most out of big enrollment districts to get more bang for their buck. Enrollment wasn’t really an issue though.  Note that Cypress-Fairbanks ISD a large suburban district northwest of Houston, has a very healthy enrollment of over 132,000 yet it will receive a 2.5% cutback.

People are saying to call your legislator and let him or her know that they are not to balance the budget on the backs of our school children. And yes, you can go here and find the legislators that represent you and use this toll free number (1-888-836-8368) and call them up.

But if you find that you are represented by a Republican, and most of us are, you’ll just be wasting your breath. These guys are H-E-Double-Hockey Sticks bent on selling your children’s education down the river. It’s true that more Republicans voted with Democrats on passage of the bill in the House, but the ones that didn’t aren’t, how should I say it, persuadable.

No, the best use of your time is to show up at the polls next year in high numbers and vote with the same righteous wrath that people voted in 2010 against Barack Obama (who wasn’t even on the ballot).

“This puts the budget in a crisis.”

I actually burst out laughing just now as I sat at my desktop PC and read this piece in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. At the very bottom of the article Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst presented his reaction to State Senator Wendy Davis’ bill-killing filibuster last night:

“Dewhurst said that he was ‘very disappointed’ and that the action could have far-reaching ramifications. ‘This puts the budget in a crisis,’ he said.”

Gee, do you think the Jr. Governor has a point?

The truth of the matter is, it has been apparent to a lot of us for a while now that the state’s budget has been in crisis mode ever since Susan Combs issued the expected budget/revenue shortfall announcement. A revenue shortfall that was denied and denied again by Rick Perry especially during the 2010 campaign season.

But now Dewhurst acknowledges what is obvious to the rest of us. The budget is in a crisis. But not because Republicans have cut taxes again and again and have failed to collect the revenue required to run the state. Not because one business after another gets to pay no taxes just so the governor can say he has attracted business to the state as a result.

Not at all.

It is in crisis now because of that State Senator from Fort Worth.

Now Perry must call the legislature into a special session. And I am left wondering whether with the super Republican majority in both the State House and Senate, Democrats will be able to get some business tax loopholes closed or get more cash out of the Rainy Day Fund.

In other words, pass a balanced budget responsibly. Passing it responsibly without doing physical harm to Texas’ system of public education.

I guess it depends on who blinks first.

Texas Budget Bill Passes

96 Republicans and 1 Democrat voted for Texas’ 2-year budget last night, making it official that, among other things, the state will decline to support its 4.5 million school children with the public education that will be necessary to compete with the rest of the world in the future.

In fact, it is a bit ironic that one way the Republican plan accomplishes this shortchanging of the next generation is to defer payment for current obligations into the next budget cycle, reminding me of the famous quotation by Popeye’s good friend Wimpy: “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

Another odd thing about this budget is that its passage was based on passage of yet another bill, SB 1811, a bill that further enables “living within our means” by bumping payment of $3.5 billion to schools into the next budget.

How, I ask myself, can this kind of budgeting process in any way be seen as responsible? Be seen as “the right thing for Texas” as stated by Republican State Rep Myra Crownover. Unless by “right” she means rightwing.

But it isn’t even that. When you hear the word “rightwing” the words fiscally conservative come to mind. This bill in no way resembles something that a fiscal conservative would pass. This is one of the most irresponsible budget bills ever.

Republicans felt enabled to pass such a monstrosity because of the elections in 2010. State Rep Jim Pitts, the chef budget writer referred to “results of the Republicans' overwhelming victory in November as a mandate to close the gaping budget hole without imposing new taxes” as the reason they felt they could do this thing.

In other words, elections matter.

Rick Perry's Illegitimate Love Child

My friend Susan was quoted in "The Nation" this week.

This is an impressive feat for a blogger, or even a not-a-blogger as Susan claims, and I am glad to write that I know her and she has helped me become a better blogger over the years. And yes, while Susan is "not a blogger" I am because only 6 people read my blog and none of those 6 take any of my advice or suggestions.

Here is what "The Nation" quoted Susan as writing in her not-a-blog with regard to Texas' new spending levels for public education.

"Texas is setting a new standard by setting new lows."

I quite agree and have stated and restated my case on this here over and over again in recent weeks. It is, in fact, the number one subject that has occupied my mind since we all found out that the GOP-run state government has been spending more than it was taking in, and doing so in proportions that can only be described as "Californian." In California they have a law that says that the budget must be passed by a 2/3ds majority so you don't even have to be in the majority in California to run its economy into a ditch.

In Texas, you still do.

So I think this cartoon by Nick Anderson published last Friday in the Houston Chronicle has some bite to it and I wanted to post it here in case any of my 6 readers missed it.

 

Texas House Passes Education-Destroying Budget

Voting strictly along party lines, the Texas House passed a budget plan that will slash $4 billion in funding for public education. Voting on SB 1811 today, 100 Republicans (the Speaker didn’t vote) ensured that public education in Texas, currently ranked 44^th out of 50 in the country, will surely drop to 50^th place within the next two years.

There will have to be a conference to work out differences between what the Senate has previously passed, and this bill. One troubling aspect of the bill is an amendment that businesses wouldn’t have to pay the business tax, the main revenue getter in the state, if they didn’t make a profit. That, according to this report, would cost the state an additional $2 billion.

The bill got 44 No votes. All Democratic.

Ironically, as the bill was voted on, a crowd of parents, teachers and administrators stood just outside the capitol building in another Save Our Schools rally. Equally ironically, people in the crowd, upon hearing of the bill’s passage, were relieved. Said one protester:

“At this point, the Senate version is what we were looking for. We'll be happy on some levels with this, but things are still going down the tracks in the wrong way.”

Agree on the last point. This bill is a train wreck. But to be happy about this is to be happy that public education in Texas just took a big hit.

Waiting For The End

Last Thursday was the last day for a bill introduced in the Texas State House to be heard on second reading. Any bill that does not make that deadline is considered “dead.” The much-hated HB 400 the bill to increase class size, allow school districts to decrease teacher pay and use work furloughs to decrease expenditures is now a “dead” bill.

Dead, unless its author, Rob Eissler, finds still “live” bills to amend with elements that were found in his bill. Something that Eissler has now promised he would start actively looking for.

This gives me pause. Eissler is now going to resurrect his “dead” bill by working harder. In one fell swoop his “dead” bill would have had a devastating effect on teachers statewide. Now he wants to work harder to get his bill back to being “undead.”

He wants to work harder to make the lives of teachers even more difficult than it already is.

I really don’t think Eissler really appreciates teachers. I really don’t. And as a classroom teacher, I am offended that someone would redouble his efforts to see that my life is made even more uncomfortable than it already is.

It really makes me want to just pack it in and quit the teaching profession altogether and forever.

Then, thinking about all of this on my way home tonight, on comes another great song by Linkin Park. I was amazed at how the lyrics exactly matched the thoughts that were going through my head at the time.

Amazing. This has happened twice now.

Senate Votes Overwhelmingly for Use of Rainy Day Fund

I read about it this afternoon in The Chron. The State Senate of Texas voted 30 For and 1 Against using $4 billion from the Rainy Day Fund to close the funding gap that exists between what is needed to “make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools”– a constitutional mandate – and what they are actually going to authorize.

So an $8 billion funding gap becomes a $4 billion funding gap if only the Senate can get the House to agree.

Something I highly doubt will happen. And why is that? Well the Senate, aside from Senator Dan Patrick, is devoid of Tea Party Republicans. The Senate still has that overwhelming Republican majority, but aside from Patrick, none of them ascribe to Tea Party principles.

The House doesn’t have that. In the House, Teabaggers proliferate. Teabaggers want something for nothing. Or worse, they want to privatize public education. That way they can cut their taxes even more.

Even though it is constitutionally mandated that the state provide a public education.

Well we already know that, since they are already not funding public education adequately, that part of the Texas Constitution, Article 7 Section 1, is like the English monarchy, mainly symbolic and ceremonial.

It’s like the Framers wanted to say that they are for education because “A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people” but actually paying for it, really going all the way and fully funding education, well gee, not really.

Actually, the Framers were only kidding.

Billions for Roads but Not One Cent for Education

Just when you think that the Texas Legislature has gone completely off its rocker in cutting health and education budgets, injuring education for the next generation and throwing grandma and grandpa out of their nursing home, just when you think that, they do you one better.

They increase funding for road building. Yeah, that’s right, while Johnny can’t read, construction companies are going to get a boon, a $3.6 billion increase over their allotment in the previous budget.

They say it will help the economy because it will spur economic development. Yeah, like spurring the rise in unemployment as 80,000 teachers get their pink slips.

Now it’s true that the transportation budget is funded mainly out of state revenues that specifically fund transportation costs, but this article in the Austin American-Statesman explains that most of the extra $3.6 billion will come from selling bonds, bonds whose interest is paid from the state’s general fund, not its transportation fund.

To the tune of $257 million over the next two years.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“‘We're borrowing money for highways. We're not borrowing money for our kids,’ state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte , D-San Antonio, said during the debate this week over the budget. She and the rest of the Senate's Democrats voted against that budget plan, while every Senate Republican voted for it.”

Business as usual in the Texas Senate.

On Being Unconstitutional

FortBendNow is running a piece today about the $830 million that is coming to Texas via the feds now that the Doggett Amendment has been repealed and Texas state leaders no longer have to guarantee that education funding in Texas won’t go below the allocation that education got in the last budget.

Recall that this amendment, special to Texas, was so that Governor Perry won’t take the Texas allocation that goes to education, put it in the education budget, and then extract $830 million from it to be redistributed to places he likes.

Like he did with $3 billion last time Texas got federal dollars for public education.

Tracy Hoke, Chief Financial Officer of Fort Bend ISD is taking a wait and see approach to see if this infusion of federal money will affect the school district’s budget over the next two years.

From FortBendNow:

“It is our understanding that the federal education funds will be applied to the shortfall this biennium,” said Hoke. “The district is unsure of how the allocation of the award will impact the state funding allocation to public schools during the upcoming biennium—so it is just too early to tell.” 

My guess is that the CFO is not willing to bet that the federal dollars will do anything, anything at all to improve the situation that public education finds itself in, in Texas for some of the same reasons that I wrote about in this blog posting.

When there is that kind of free money out there, count on Rick Perry to perform an encore to his 2009 performance and play a shell game with this $830 million. Now you see it, now you don’t. Hey presto, 16,000 more teachers to the unemployment lines.

All of this because Rick Perry, a constitutional scholar, said that it was unconstitutional for him, as governor, to make any guarantees about how the education budget will look like in the next biennium.

Well, how about this, and speaking of the constitution. What about the part of the Texas constitution that speaks to funding of public education. Specifically this from Article 7, Section 1:

“SUPPORT AND MAINTENANCE OF SYSTEM OF PUBLIC FREE SCHOOLS.  A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”

Yeah, that one.

Is what Governor Perry and the Republican-dominated legislature are doing unconstitutional? Why does Governor Perry cite the constitution for what he can’t do on one hand, yet blithely ignores the constitution in doing (or in this case, not doing) something else on the other?

Hypocrisy? Greed? A desire to end public education as we know it?

You know, there is precedence in the law about this. Judge John Dietz, who became the thorn in the side of the legislature in 2004 when he found the massive under funding of public education to be unconstitutional, was the main cog in the machine to change the way education was funded. However, because property values were on the rise, the taxation rate on property tax was decreased by the Republican-dominated legislature from $1.50 per $100 assessed valuation to $1.00 per $100, with school boards allowed to raise that rate to $1.04, which most of them did.

Then property valuation dropped after the great recession of 2008-2009. And so did revenue.

But no corresponding rise in taxation rates, because, oh no, can’t do that during a recession.

Judge Dietz, where are you now? Does someone need to file another lawsuit?

Perry: Rainy Day Fund is For Rain (Literally)

In citing his concern today that the Senate Finance Committee included another $3 billion from the Rainy Day Fund to offset some under funded but constitutionally mandated state funding of education and healthcare, Rick Perry, a supposed constitutional expert, in his own mind anyway, said it would be unwise to use money for a "short term need" at a time when "nobody knows what the future is going to be." A future, he intimates, that could include a Category 5 Hurricane hitting Corpus Christi or Houston. That could bankrupt the state he says.

Maybe.

But constitutionally, the Rainy Day Fund can’t be used to handle rainy days. Constitutionally, the Rainy Day Fund can only be used to pay for recurring expenses during bad times. During times when not enough revenue has been raised in order to pay for essential state services.

Here is what it says in the Texas Constitution:

“The constitutional amendment establishing an economic stabilization fund in the state treasury to be used to offset unforeseen shortfalls in revenue.”

The only problem with this is that some would say that there were no unforeseen shortfalls in revenue. When the revenue structure was established 6 years ago there already were predictions of twenty plus billion dollar shortfalls even back then.

So a shortfall that was entirely intentional, theoretically, cannot qualify to make draws on the Rainy Day Fund.

But no one is admitting to that, are they?

So it’s back to the original premise. Rick Perry is blowing smoke out of the place from which monkeys also fly. The Rainy Day Fund was never meant to take care of disasters; it was intended to take care of budget shortfalls. Like the one that will occur in 2 year’s time.

The Senate Finance Committee is entirely correct to draw another $3 billion from the fund.

They can and should do that. It is actually constitutionally mandated that this be done.

And then they can go back and write in a draw on the Permanent School Fund and wipe out the entire shortfall.

Saving the lives of Texans, and saving the public education system that will otherwise regress to what we had in the Dark Ages, in a feudal society, where only the rich went to school.

Fixing the Structural Deficit

Now you see? This is what I have been talking about. Here we have a state legislature poised to pass a job-killing budget bill and a governor poised to sign it into law, and not one thing is being done to correct the structural deficit that got us in this fix in the first place. You’d think that would be enough, wouldn’t you? You’d think that the Republican-dominated state government couldn’t come up with more ways to ruin the state’s finances.

And there you would be wrong. A bill to extend business tax cuts to businesses with less than $1 million per year in revenue has just been voted out of committee. At a time of budget shortfalls, school closings and massive teacher layoffs 8 of the 11 members of the House Ways and Means Committee voted to deny the state of $150 million in revenue over the next two years.

Absolutely astounding.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“The bill by Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, would continue a tax break that will cost the state almost $150 million over the next two years. Under the original business franchise tax, only companies with revenue of less than $600,000 a year were exempt from the tax.”

The structural deficit was created several years ago when Republicans decreased property taxes and sought to recover the lost balance by creating the business tax. A tax that didn’t quite make up for the loss in revenue from property taxes. So they are going to solve this problem by increasing the amount of money that the business tax doesn’t collect.

Republicans are in transition from doing a bad job raising revenue to pay for basic government services like health and education to doing a worse job.

HB 400: Nevermind

A teacher friend of mine in Austin, a gifted physics teacher I might add, is distressed over hearing the news that HB 400, a bill introduced by Eissler in the current legislative session, will strip her of some of her salary next year.

In Austin, they have yet to be given their contracts to sign for next year, and her colleagues, she tells me, suspect that it is because the administration is waiting for news of the bill’s passage so they can offer them lower pay next year.

Current state law dictates that a public school teacher cannot be paid less than they were paid in the previous year. HB 400 "fixes" that, allowing school districts to pay its teachers less. Ostensibly this is to reduce the number of teachers they will have to lay off to stay within their budgets.

But my friend, and her colleagues, can rest easy, for a year at least. Here is what Section 31 of HB 400 says:

“SECTION 31 (a) Except as provided by Subsection (b) of this section, this Act applies beginning with the 2011-2012 school year.

(b) if this Act takes effect on or before April 10, 2011, the change in law made by Sections 21.103 and 21.206, Education Code, as amended by this Act, applies beginning with contracts for the 2011-2012 school year. If this Act takes effect after April 10, 2011, the change in law made by Sections 21.103 and 21.206, Education Code, as amended by this Act, applies beginning with contracts for the 2012-2013 school year.”

It is now past April 10^th. The bill has only just been voted out of committee. It doesn’t apply next year.

And really, I have to wonder if it will stand a constitutional challenge. Teachers are being singled out as public sector employees for pay reduction. Administrators? Not so much. Or police. Or firemen. Or anyone else. My question is, doesn’t this bill, if enacted, violate the equal protection clause of the 14^th Amendment?

These legislators keep missing the point. Spending cuts must come hand in hand with an increase in state revenues.