Other House Bill Info

HB 1, by Chisum: relating to public school finance and property tax rate compression; making an appropriation. This amends the all-important Section 41.093 of the Texas Education code. Section 41 is where the terms “Chapter 41 School” or “donor under chapter 41,” etc., come when discussing the current Share-The-Wealth school finance plan.

Among other things, this bill provides for the funding to school districts from the state that is supposed to replace the money districts will lose when they lower their tax rates. Of course, how this money will be distributed and what not appears to be based once again on the complicated “WADA” (weighted average daily attendance) formula:

SECTION 1.01.  Section 41.093, Education Code, is amended by
amending Subsection (a) and adding Subsection (b-1) to read as
follows:
(a)  Subject to Subsection (b-1), the [The] cost of each
credit is an amount equal to the greater of:
(1)  the amount of the district's maintenance and
operations tax revenue per student in weighted average daily
attendance for the school year for which the contract is executed;
or
(2)  the amount of the statewide district average of
maintenance and operations tax revenue per student in weighted
average daily attendance for the school year preceding the school
year for which the contract is executed.
(b-1)  The commissioner shall exclude maintenance and
operations tax revenue resulting from amounts by which  maintenance
and operations tax rates exceed $1.33 on the $100 valuation of
taxable property in computing the amounts described by Subsections
(a)(1) and (2) and determining the cost of an attendance credit.
SECTION 1.02.  Subchapter E, Chapter 42, Education Code, is
amended by adding Sections 42.2516 and 42.261 to read as follows:
Sec. 42.2516.  ADDITIONAL STATE AID FOR TAX REDUCTION.  (a)
Subject to Subsection (e), but notwithstanding any other provision
of this title, a school district is entitled to the amount of state
revenue necessary to maintain state and local revenue per student
in weighted average daily attendance in the amount equal to the
greater of:

(1)  the amount of state and local revenue per student
in weighted average daily attendance for the maintenance and
operation of the district to which the district would have been
entitled for the 2006-2007 school year under this chapter, as it
existed on January 1, 2006, or, if the district would have been
subject to Chapter 41, as that chapter existed on January 1, 2006,
the amount to which the district would have been entitled under that
chapter, based on the funding elements in effect for the 2005-2006
school year, if the district imposed a maintenance and operations
tax at the rate adopted by the district for the 2005 tax year; or
(2)  the amount of state and local revenue per student
in weighted average daily attendance for the maintenance and
operation of the district to which the district would have been
entitled for the 2006-2007 school year under this chapter, as it
existed on January 1, 2006, or, if the district would have been
subject to Chapter 41, as that chapter existed on January 1, 2006,
the amount to which the district would have been entitled under that
chapter, based on the funding elements in effect for the 2005-2006
school year, if the district imposed a maintenance and operations
tax at the rate equal to the rate described by Section 26.08(i) or
(k)(1), Tax Code, as applicable, for the 2006 tax year.
(b)  In determining the amount to which a district would be
entitled under Subsection (a), the commissioner shall include:
(1)  any amounts described by Rider 69, page III-19,
Chapter 1369, Acts of the 79th Legislature, Regular Session, 2005
(the General Appropriations Act);
(2)  for a school district that received additional
revenue for the 2005-2006 school year as a result of an agreement
under Subchapter E, Chapter 41, the amount of that additional
revenue, which is the amount by which the total maintenance and
operations revenue available to the district exceeded the total
maintenance and operations revenue that would have been available
to the district if the district had not entered into the agreement
and had imposed a maintenance and operations tax at the rate of
$1.50 on the $100 valuation of taxable property;
(3)  any amount necessary to reflect an adjustment made
by the commissioner under Section 42.005;
(4)  any amount necessary to reflect an adjustment made
by the commissioner under Section 42.2521; and
(5)  any amount necessary to reflect an adjustment made
by the commissioner under Section 42.2531.

As I read this bill, it’s anything but the end of “Robin Hood,” as it appears funding would continue to be distributed to former Chapter 41 schools in the same manner:

if the district would have been subject to Chapter 41, as that chapter existed on January 1, 2006,  the amount to which the district would have been entitled under that chapter, based on the funding elements in effect for the 2005-2006  school year, if the district imposed a maintenance and operations  tax at the rate equal to the rate described by Section 26.08(i) or  (k)(1), Tax Code, as applicable, for the 2006 tax year.

HB 2 by Pitts: Relating to the allocation of certain revenue from franchise taxes, motor vehicle sales and use taxes, and taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products to provide property tax relief. Basically, this bill is the vehicle by which the new taxes and revised taxes will be allocated.

HB 3 By Keffer: Relating to the franchise tax; making an appropriation; providing penalties. Basically, this is the franchise tax bill.

HB4 By Swinford: This is the motor vehicle sales and use tax portion of the Sharp/Perry/TTRC plan.

HB 5 By Hamric: This is the cigarette tax bill. Note that while everyone simplifies this as a “dollar a pack tax,” that’s not how it’s outlined in the legislation:

$70.50 [$20.50] per thousand on cigarettes
weighing three pounds or less per thousand; and
(2)  the rate provided by Subdivision (1) plus $2.10 per thousand on cigarettes weighing more than three pounds per thousand.

For fun, here’s the text of the Rove Resolution. Technically, and I emphasize “technically,” because the resolution is quite flowery, the resolution doesn’t honor Rove alone, but rather honors Rove “on his roast at the 50th anniversary gala of the Headliners Club.” That’s a nice, legislative way of honoring Rove for doing the roast while getting all of the other garbage in the resolution and in the record.

Here’s another resolution allowing for the display of the words “In God We Trust” in the House Chamber.

Here’s a resolution honoring a couple that is getting married. Don’t you love to see such beautiful legislative writing as this:

The joining of these two individuals in matrimony on April 22, 2006, in the lovely setting of the Austin Museum of Art-Laguna Gloria, is bringing together family and dear friends to witness one of life’s memorable milestones; this joyous event will mark a profound deepening of a relationship that has grown in love, respect, and mutual regard with each passing day…

For fun, if the same person that wrote that also wrote—oh, say…—the cigarette tax bill, here’s what it might have sounded like:

The taxation of these tobacco products and devices of nicotene delivery shall generate and produce for the glorious and most beloved state of Texas revenue that, while lovely and grand in its own rights and respects, shall not, may not, and likely will not be a constant stream of wonderous and mighty revenue which can sustain the education of the school children of the public of this State in the manner in which the father of public education in Texas, the late and most exhalted president of our former Republic, Mirabeau B. Lamar, felt they should become accustom. We implore you to pass this act…

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