The Teacher Retirement System of Texas has a big problem on its hands. A few weeks ago, it was discovered that TRS — the state agency responsible for overseeing teacher pensions — had signed a multi-year lease for luxurious office space in downtown Austin costing more than $326,000 per month. That handsome sum secured 100,000...
How Big is Texas’ Pension Debt? Answer: $86,109,622,354. That’s right, pension debt owed by Texas’ state and local retirement systems grew to more than $86.1 billion in February 2020, according to the Pension Review Board’s latest actuarial valuation report. That’s a marked increase from the previous report (in October 2019) when unfunded liabilities totaled $3.4...
Austin home prices are soaring. According to new figures released by the Austin Board of Realtors, the median price for a home inside the city limits rose to an eye-popping $384,750 in January 2020. That’s a year-over-year increase of 13 percent, signaling an incredibly hot market. Source: Austin Board of Realtors But that’s not the...
Leave it to Austin’s single-minded central planners to pitch a transportation plan that is both rooted in the past and a burden on future generations. While the newly unveiled proposal is still in its infancy, it aims to bring 18th-century technology back with a vengeance by adding and expanding fixed rail systems. That could include...
Public education advocates regularly criticize the Legislature for what they perceive as limited resources, tight budgets, and low salaries within the education system. But that narrative often doesn’t quite align with the facts. Case in point: sky-high superintendent pay. As the Foundation has noted in the past, superintendents in Texas frequently bring home six-figure salaries...
New open government legislation went into effect recently, letting the public finally get answers to some long-lingering questions, like how much did the city of McAllen pay entertainer Enrique Iglesias for a 2015 concert? According to the Texas Tribune, Iglesias was paid $485,000 for his performance and “provided with a chartered flight from Guadalajara, Mexico;...
With a nod to “Auld Lang Syne,” there’s plenty about 2019 that shouldn’t be forgot. There were successes, slight improvements, and setbacks—which hopefully will be remedied in 2021 when the legislature meets again. The big win for Austinites came when an appeals court struck down the city of Austin’s attempted ban on short-term rentals. All...
Hollywood actor Hugh Jackman once said: “Giving people a hand up, not a handout, is the way forward.” The Trump administration seems to agree, having announced new rules for the nation’s food stamp program that could help people transition faster from welfare to work. The new rules, set to take effect in April, take aim at a loophole...
In less than a week, Houstonians will once again head to the polls to select their next mayor and chart the city’s course over the next few years. But before voters decide on which direction the city ought to go, they should first understand where it is. To get a sense of things, voters can look to...
Local government debt continues to soar. According to new data from the Bond Review Board, local debt service outstanding—or “the amount that is required to cover the repayment of principal and interest on a debt” held by political subdivisions in Texas—rose to more than $365 billion in FY 2019, which is an increase of almost...
The re-election of Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, who made protecting his state’s expanded Medicaid program a key campaign issue, has some pundits excited about the chances of expanding Texas’ own government-run healthcare system. What these pundits fail to realize, however, is that neither an election nor the elation surrounding it make Medicaid expansion a...
Texas Voters Approve Billions in New Debt On Tuesday, voters approved an overwhelming majority of the $9 billion-plus in new debt pitched by cities, counties, school districts, and special districts, according to the Texas Comptroller’s Bond Election Roundup website. Here’s how the top 10 largest new debt proposals fared and a few observations to boot....