LONGVIEW/GREGG COUNTY (KYTX) - Several East Texas school districts are asking voters to increase their taxes to fund education. Administrators say, if you're not being asked to pony up more money now, your time might be coming.
"It's gonna effect everybody. Even the richest districts are going to be affected," Pine Tree ISD Chief Financial Officer Judy Downing said.
Every year, Downing does more with less. Despite a $1.2 million state funding cut, she learned Tuesday that the district's electric rate isn't being cut.
"Rates are going up. We have utilities going up around us. We have supplies going up, but yet and still, we live on a fixed income," Downing said
Pine tree ISD blames the problem on a finance system they say is unfair.
"One district here and across town have a difference of twelve-to-fifteen hundred dollars per student allotment," Pine Tree Superintendent Dr. Teresa J. Farler said. "It doesn't make sense."
Spring Hill ISD is asking its taxpayers to approve an eight percent tax hike to make up a nearly $1 million shortfall.
Similar elections are set for Brownsboro, Ore City and Mount Enterprise.
"The state used to fund us at 62 percent, and now it is 45 percent," Spring Hill ISD Superintendent Wes Jones said. "We don't agree with what the state is doing."
The state determines how much money each district needs to educate it's kids, with extra weight given for special education and poverty.
The system hasn't changed since 2006. As a result, Pine Tree and Spring Hill receive as much as $1,300 less per student than two school districts five miles away. That's a cumulative loss of millions of dollars.
As costs mount to keep school doors open, administrators say the problem will spread and affect every Texas taxpayer and student.
"The child is caught in the middle," Downing said, "and that's what's the sad and unfair part about this."
Leaders say they hope lawmakers fix school funding in 2013, but believe the issue is headed to court.
The Texas Education Agency has provided presentations over several years regarding school finance and how the state's funding system has progressed since 2004. To view that information, click here.
To learn more about tax ratification elections in Spring Hill, Brownsboro, Ore City and Mount Enterprise, click here.
(Courtesy kutnews.org)
