Informed Speculation

UPDATE 9:51 p.m.: In the comments, Politicaster suggests that the headline of this piece is misleading…he’s right…it wasn’t the Robin Hood mechanism that was ruled unconstitutional, but the ‘de facto’ statewide income tax…

Here in Texas, the political reality has always been no state income tax, period. Furthermore, a statewide property tax is forbidden by the Texas Constitution. The result is that the public schools in Texas are financed by property taxes, and money is given from the (property) rich school districts to the (property) poor districts in order to provide ‘equity’ (thus, the ‘Robin Hood’ moniker). If it sounds unwieldy, it is, and Texas lawmakers have been wrestling with how to correct this crazy scheme without breaking the cardinal political rules.

They’ll have an extra wind at their backs now, as the Texas Supreme Court has ruled that, by forcing districts to tax at the highest permissable level to meet state and federal mandates, the system has formed a ‘de facto’ unconstitutional state property tax:

The Texas Supreme Court declared Tuesday that the property tax system that supports the state’s public schools is unconstitutional, and it gave the Legislature until June 1 to come up with a new way to pay for education.

Texas lawmakers have been struggling with the question of school finances for more than a decade, and the latest ruling adds urgency to the dispute.

Money for the $30 billion Texas school system comes primarily from local property taxes and franchise taxes. But both rich and poor school districts contend the system is unfair.

The high court found that overall school funding is adequate and that rich and poor districts have equal access to money. But the justices ruled 7-1 that the funding system amounts to a statewide property tax, which is unconstitutional in Texas.

The plaintiffs argued that the state contribution for local education is insufficient and that in order to meet all state and federal education mandates – such as the 22-student per class limit and minimum teacher salaries – they must tax at the limit prescribed in Texas law. That, they said, amounts to a single statewide property tax.

The high court did not order state government to spend more money on local education, and declined to offer its own solution.

However, the ruling does require the Legislature to change the manner in which money is collected and distributed. Legislators have tried to amend the constitution to allow a statewide property tax but have always failed to draw enough support.

The funny part is the line that the high court ‘declined to offer its own solution’ – you bet your a** it did!

I don’t know the answer – it’s been a problem for about twenty years now, and some great minds and some feeble ones alike have taken a stab at it…an outsider may say, well, you’ve got to have one or the other, either the statewide income tax or the statewide property tax, and that may be, but I can’t stress enough how strongly that will be resisted, though I suppose, of the two, the statewide property tax would be the more palatable (certainly it would for me – I’m already getting dinged the maximum, and it’s painful (actually, that may not be true – I think I’ve confused the maximum statewide rate with the fact that my property valuation always rises the maximum percentage it is allowed to in a single year))…to be continued (hat tip to Ryan James)…