Pearland ISD’s school board may soon ask voters to approve a major tax increase, potentially eroding some of the new property tax relief agreed upon by the 88th Texas Legislature before it even materializes. On Monday, the Houston Chronicle reported that trustees are considering seeking voter-approval for a permanent nine-cent tax rate increase that officials...
One of the key stories in higher education finance is so-called “state disinvestment,” which alleges that states have made relentless cuts to college and university funding. But state disinvestment is a myth—states have not, in fact, disinvested in higher education. In this debate, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a figure...
Earlier this week, we wrote about the great work that Tarrant County commissioners had accomplished through their FY ’24 budget framework (which cut spending, kept the tax rate to a minimum, and included a homestead exemption). And now, it appears more North Texas local governments are prepared to act in ways that benefit taxpayers. The...
Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines the word ‘rapacious’ to mean: excessively grasping or covetous; ravenous. There may be no better word to describe the spenders on the Austin city council. On Tuesday, all but one councilmember (Mackenzie Kelly) voted to approve a massive $5.5 billion budget for fiscal year 2024, which is being billed as “the largest...
Broken families take a lot of healing. That’s because familial support is a person’s greatest resource in life. We gain support in many ways across our lifespan: friendships, relationships, family, and within our communities. If we are fortunate, we gain the best of all of these. The notion of family can be likened to a...
Texas cities are in an abusive relationship with the English language. As city officials draft their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year, you might think these public-facing documents are being filled with data points and explanations. But increasingly, they’re being filled with something else: woke-speak, the dialect of the progressive intelligentsia. Without fail, these municipal...
More than $1,300 each year—that’s how much a Texas family will save each year due to the Texas Legislature’s recent property tax relief deal. Gov. Greg Abbott worked with House and Senate leadership, finally reaching a compromise plan that ultimately provides the largest amount of property tax relief ever. The bill, SB 2, allocates $18...
Jennifer DeStefano answered the phone, hearing her daughter’s voice on the other end: “Mom, I messed up.” Her daughter’s voice was followed by a man’s; he made it clear that if she ever wanted to see her daughter again, she needed to cough up $1 million. It was a fake—a deepfake. The voice on the...
The coyote—a human smuggler—armed with what appeared to be an AR-style rifle, directed migrants as they crossed the river between Piedras Negras, Mexico, and Eagle Pass, Texas. Scanning the shore and the brush beyond, he ensured his charges were across, then he slipped back into Mexico. This is what drone footage captured on Aug. 2...
Tarrant County residents could soon be the envy of taxpayers across the state. Last week, the county commissioners’ court gave its initial approval to the FY 2024 budget, and there was much to applaud. Here’s more from Tarrant County Tim O’Hare: For those unfamiliar with the no-new-revenue (NNR) tax rate, it is “the tax rate...
A major fiscal crisis looms over the Bayou City. In just a few short years, experts expect that the city of Houston will have to wrestle with a “structural budget deficit of up to $300 million.” To close a budget hole of that size, officials will likely have to use some combination of tax hikes,...
Last week, several House Democrats finally visited the U.S. Southern border. But it was not to witness the ongoing crisis; rather, it was to see the buoy barrier that was put in place by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to deter illegal crossings from Mexico into the U.S. via the Rio Grande River. They were quick...