On September 13, 2011, the Harleton ISD Board of Trustees took a big step to fight for the students and taxpayers of the district by joining in support of the lawsuit concerning the school finance system in Texas. School finance has recently made big news in Texas when the 82nd legislature cut approximately $5.5 billion from the funds that would have gone to school district in Texas. These cuts come at a time when the state was also requiring more from schools and higher standards for the students.
The current system for financing public schools in Texas contains revenue for schools in the form of a number the state has entitled “Target Revenue Number.” The number, derived from analysis based upon a district’s condition in the 2005-2006 school year, is multiplied by the school district’s number of Weighted Average Daily Attendance (WADA), basically the number of students in attendance at the district that have been weighted based upon special needs and costs to educate students with these special needs, to give you the district’s revenues to fund schooling for the year. The calculation looks like this: Target Revenue Number X WADA=Target Revenue. The amount of revenue the district can generate locally is then supplemented by the state up to the Target Revenue amount. If the district raises more money locally due to an increase in the appraised value of property in the district, then the state does not have to pay as much to the district in order for them to reach their Target Revenue. Also, keep in mind that this number is based upon 2005-2006 information, and we all know that nothing has increased in price since then, right?
Let’s look at an example using Harleton’s Target Revenue Number, $4952. In order to determine the Target Revenue for Harleton ISD, we take this number and multiply by the number of WADA, which is approximately 1000. $4952 X 1000= $4,952,000. This is Harleton’s Target Revenue. Basically, this, along with some other small adjustments, provides the funding that our district uses to carry out schooling for our children. The only catch is that the Target Revenue Numbers vary in our state by a wide margin. Districts have numbers as low as $3800 and as high as over $12,000. The average in the state is close to $5100. Even if Harleton were able to get the state average ($5100) then our revenue would increase by $148,000. That would be equivalent to 3 teachers with over 20 years experience each. Could that be a benefit for our children?
Our school district is located in Harrison County, and the Target Revenue Numbers of the school districts in our county also vary from $4952 to $6046. The breakdown of these districts is as follows:
Harleton ISD $4952
Marshall ISD $5064
Waskom ISD $5414
Elysian Fields $5628
Karnack ISD $5727
Hallsville ISD $6046
You can see that some districts are going to be guaranteed more revenues than others just based upon the Target Revenue Numbers, and if they increase their enrollments does the system allow for Harleton to catch up? No. If all of these districts increased by the same number of WADA, they would just multiply by the already inequitable Target Revenue Numbers that are in place now. But, that’s not the worst news.
As a taxpayer, you should definitely be upset. Not only can you see that if Target Revenue Numbers are ranging from $3800 to over $12,000, but studies have shown that taxpayers are being treated unfairly, as well. Among the 80% of districts in the state with the lowest revenues per student, they have an average tax rate for maintenance and operations of $1.068. The wealthiest 10% of districts have an average tax rate for maintenance and operations of $1.00. Or, look at it this way when you talk about yield per penny of tax for every student. If we look at the poorest 20% of schools (n=256), we see an average yield per penny of $48.97 per student while having an average M&O tax rate of $1.13. We can compare these numbers to the wealthiest 20% of districts (n=256) and find an average yield per penny of $68.31 with an M&O tax rate of just under $1.02. So, not only do these districts get more for their students, but they get to do so without their tax payers having to pay as much. The differences are even more pronounced when we compare the poorest 10% with the wealthiest 10%. Don’t the students of our district deserve as much as others? Should our taxpayers have to pay more in taxes just to maintain services and facilities while other districts are able to provide more at a lower tax rate?
