AUSTIN – The Texas Public Policy Foundation today offered comments following the afternoon meeting of the Texas Commission on Public School Finance.
“Texans desire the opportunity to finally own property one day instead of renting from the government,” said Vance Ginn, Ph.D., and director of the Center for Economic Prosperity at TPPF. “By limiting government spending and using taxes collected by the state to freeze and buy down the school M&O property tax until eliminated, that part of the American dream can finally be fulfilled. We look forward to continuing to work with the Commission and other elected officials to provide substantial tax relief and abundant prosperity for Texans.”
To help achieve property tax relief, the Texas Public Policy Foundation previously issued a proposal that could eliminate nearly half of the property tax burden by ending the school maintenance and operations property tax. This property tax relief proposal is supported by the 18 groups of the Conservative Texas Budget Coalition.
Some argued today that Texas needs to increase new taxes at the state level in order to improve public education, but the Texas Education Agency’s data demonstrate otherwise as existing tax resources support good results for children at over 250 of Texas’ high student poverty schools.
“Texas does not have to increase taxes or spending on public education in order to vastly improve student outcomes,” said Kara Belew, senior education policy advisor at TPPF. “For example, many school districts give annual raises to ineffective teachers, who are not helping children learn. Texas could immediately improve student outcomes, within existing tax resources, by actually identifying and paying good teachers more.”