On November 7th, Austin ISD is submitting a $1.05 billion bond to Austin voters for their approval. The bond deserves a close look, as with any proposed investment, from parents and taxpayers. Extra consideration is due in this case, as the school district has stated that the outstanding needs of the district actually come to...
Hurricane Harvey is sure to test the mettle of incoming Texas legislators. When lawmakers reconvene in January 2019, the state’s revenue picture is likely to be a little gloomier than usual, given that total losses from the storm could reach $190 billion. Even if the economic impact doesn’t hit revenues hard, Harvey will force...
Re: “San Antonio to see CPS reform,” Metro, Oct. 17: As Express-News writer Allie Morris reported, foster care in Texas was managed by the state, but reform legislation passed this year expands community foster care by shifting responsibility to private non-profit or local government entities. Under a similar community care pilot, the Fort Worth...
Local corrections costs have quadrupled over the past 40 years. And paying for jails’ rising financial burden has inflicted a severe punishment against one group in particular — local taxpayers. Operating jails has contributed to the doubling of local tax burdens since 1977. This trend is not surprising given that the nation’s average daily local jail population quadrupled to 630,000 since 1970. Unfortunately, the incomes of most...
Some folks never miss an opportunity to discount Texas’ prosperity by ascribing the Lone Star State’s good fortune to its oil and gas deposits. A recent example from The New York Times, “Why Texas No Longer Feels Miraculous,” argues that the oil and gas sector boom led to the “Texas Miracle” even as conservative...
You may often wonder how Texas’ business tax climate ranks with other states. Well, the Tax Foundation has an answer in their recently released 2018 State Business Tax Climate Index report rankings all fifty states based on the burdens of each state’s corporate income tax, individual income tax, sales tax, unemployment insurance, and property tax....
The hotel occupancy tax (HOT) is sometimes called a “waste tax” because it can’t be spent on much more than fluff. Here’s another example of that. KXAN launched an investigation recently into money spent by Visit Austin, a private 501(c)6 that markets the city internationally and “receives a substantial portion of its revenue from the...
Criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement is nothing new. In 1992, U.S. presidential candidate Ross Perot notoriously implied that if NAFTA passed there would be a “giant sucking sound” as jobs and wealth left the country. Recently, there’s discussion of adding sunset clauses and other measures that could weaken the agreement because...
Austin is vying for Amazon’s impressive new “HQ2” — a second company headquarters that could supercharge the local economy with $5 billion in capital investment and 50,000 new, good-paying jobs. Landing the state-of-the-art campus would be nothing short of blockbuster. While Austin has much to offer and much to gain, it shouldn’t fall into...
Do you have a custom pecan wood table in your house that costs as much as a car? If not, then the city has nicer stuff than you. A new city audit found that, during recent renovations at City Hall, the previous city manager submitted a Purchase Order for “a custom pecan wood table” costing...
A new report from the Austin city auditor confirms what many of us knew already—that construction costs often balloon far beyond their original estimates. The auditor’s review of the Public Works Department, the branch of city government that “designs, manages, and inspects major capital improvement projects,” identified a slew of problems with the city’s construction...
Although the public’s faith in traditional, brick and mortar higher education is dwindling, college tuition prices keep rising. A Pew Research Center national pollfound that 57 percent of prospective college students believe that a college degree no longer offers a value commensurate with the price of tuition and fees. The same poll revealed that 75...