Question: How fast can things go from good to bad for a Texas pension plan? Answer: Fairly quickly. Less than 20 years ago, the City of Austin Employees’ Retirement System (COAERS) was actually overfunded, according to a new TPPF report Evaluating Solutions for Austin’s Billion Dollar Pension Crisis. Today, the fund is nowhere near as...
When speaking about the different ways to spend money, famed free-market economist Milton Friedman had this to say: “There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the...
A new article lays bare the increasing irrationality of ISD administrator compensation. According to the Texas Monitor, over the last 15 months, ISDs around the state have approved severance packages to 24 superintendents worth an estimated $6 million or an average of $250,000 per official. Troublingly, many of these arrangements appear to have been much...
The reality of high home prices in Austin was the topic of discussion in a recent Community Impact article. But while much of the piece seems to suggest that more government intervention is the solution, most of us recognize that city government is the problem. To its credit, the article touches on the ill effects...
Over the weekend, James Quintero, director of the Center for Local Governance, wrote about the false narrative emerging in Austin “that public schools are underfunded and the state is to blame.” Many today, in alignment with various education associations, assert that public education suffers from a lack of resources. But the data tells a different...
A new report from the Texas Monitor is raising some serious questions about taxpayers and public pensions. In 2016, Carolyn Foster, Grand Prairie ISD’s former chief financial officer, was arrested and later convicted of stealing $600,000 from the district. That money was originally slotted to go toward “awards to teachers and other needs”, but instead...
Sick of sky-high property tax bills? So is Governor Abbott. Speaking at a news conference last month, the governor captured the frustration well: “Texans are fed up with property taxes being raised with impunity. They are tired of endless government spending while honest, hard-working people struggle just to keep up with paying their tax bills....
On Tuesday, Think Local Liberty’s Bryan Mathew appeared on FOX 7 to point out some of the many flaws with Austin’s paid sick leave ordinance, which is expected to be voted on tomorrow. “When we have a regulatory environment where many firms are able to enter and compete, you’ll see that they start to compete...
Texas’ local public pension plans are overpromised and underfunded, as is clearly shown by a new mapping tool from the Reason Foundation. Last week, Reason’s Marc Joffe “built a map of Texas’ local pension systems using data provided by the Texas Pension Review Board” that shows the prevalence of these systems. The data that accompanies...
Don’t California my Texas. That phrase has increasingly made its way into the vernacular of Texas freedom lovers, especially notable as we wait for a decision in the Texas Supreme Court case City of Laredo v. Laredo Merchants Association. At issue in the case, which could well establish a statewide precedent, is whether various overreaching...