Tax Reform (again) and How You May Still be Able to Help Your ISD

Texas Republicans have controlled the House and Senate in the state legislature for a number of years. (Can anyone remember how many?)

Republican politicians always turn to what they call tax reform to boost their popularity with the electorate. What they really mean, of course, is tax cuts.

They particularly dislike school taxes since they would rather take care of education in other ways — in private schools, in the home, or in lockup situations for those who can’t afford private education, for whom home schooling is not available, or won’t attend public schools for a variety of reasons and wind up in a jail somewhere.

On my last county tax bill early this year, I noticed that on the breakdown of the levies of individual taxing authorities, I was not being charged a cent for public education provided by the Brazosport Independent School District. After confirming from the county tax office and the ISD that this was correct, I went ahead and paid my tax bill.

After that I did some math to compute how much I would have owed the district using my property assessment and the district’s tax rate.

Then I did a little research online to find the site of the BISD Education Foundation. The foundation raises money to help the district and its teachers to do some of the things they can’t do now due to the loss of state funding over the last several years. I think most local public school districts have education foundations now to try to help their districts cope with the work of the Texas legislature.

I also discovered the Brazoria County Dream Center. They do a lot of the things required to help underprivileged children go to school ready to learn. And they are doing an outstanding job.

And so is the Center for Arts and Sciences. The Center is providing some of the things that public schools cannot do now due to reduced funding to fine arts programs by the state.

After thinking about the things these organizations do and how public schools have suffered due to the losses of state funding over the last several years, it gave me a bit of a thrill to sit down and write checks to each of them

There are, no doubt, some taxpayers who need these tax reductions and they should do the things they need to do with the savings. But we should all be glad that our schools are here doing the job of providing an educated citizenry — so essential to our democracy. But for those whose retirement situation allows, I suggest that you examine your next bill from the tax assessor-collector and see if you are one of those with a zero tax levy by your local ISD.

If you drew that lucky number and don’t owe your local school district anything, find some good organizations that are doing things for students and teachers in public schools. Then figure up what your tax bill would have been for public education if you were a regular taxpayer. Write checks for that total to the organizations you have identified.

Mine were the:

Brazosport ISD Education Foundation

Brazoria County Dream Center

Brazosport Center for the Arts and Sciences

No public education, no democracy. If you value it, get behind it.