Swanson wants to ABOLISH property taxes--here's why that's nuts

A while back, I invited myself to a meeting of retirees with a representative from Senator Bettencourt's office. He talked at length about cutting property taxes. When I jumped into the conversation, it was to discuss how appalling it was that the state legislature intended to cut local taxes when the only reason taxes had been increasing was to cover cuts in state taxes [1]. The irony here was that most of the audience qualified for fixed taxes and were excluded from many increases. This led to one of the retirees asking an excellent question:

"What are our taxes used for?"

That was when I realized my community didn't notice their local services ON WHICH THEY DEPEND until there's a problem. All these organizations are there...and threatened. Guess who answered the man's question correctly: Bettencourt's representative. He knew exactly the impact of Bettencourt's policy position and didn't explain what-it-meant to people while selling it. Now, our Representative in Texas House District 150, Valoree Swanson, is making her position clear on the same issue:

Jan. 24, 2017: "Rep. Valoree Swanson files bill to abolish property taxes" [2]

As a long-time party loyalist, Swanson knows or should know exactly how important having a fire department and an ambulance service, not to mention schools and community colleges, is to the community she serves. Before we start to look at her finances, I'd like to share some information about the property taxes in my area and what they support. Then I'm going to wrap this up with urging you to

VOTE IN THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY FOR JAMES WILSON

While you probably don't live in my area, you have similar organizations doing similar functions. These are the things that Ms. Swanson is working to cripple if not outright eliminate from our communities.

Schools

I pay for two different types of schools: Spring ISD for the K-12 children in my community and Lone Star College System for the adults to get professional training and advanced skills [3]. Approximately 40% of each budget is supported by property taxes. While there's a lot of discussion about how best to educate kids, the fact of the matter is that it needs to be done for a community to thrive. People with lower educations have high rates of incarceration, more health problems, higher death-rates among THEIR children, and other associated community costs of poverty. With respect to the community college, career skills are essential for higher wages, and we live in a time in which most adults have to retrain for a new career at least once in their lives.

The Other Stuff

I've long pushed for (a) local governmental organizations to get an online interface, (b) move their elections off of the May election cycle, and (c) Texas curriculum to include studying local government. Things are improving, but those are the problems as to why some of the material below may come as a surprise. To look up which organizations are funded from your local property taxes, search your address here:

http://hcad.org/property-search/real-property/real-property-search-by-address/

For my precinct, there's Harris County [4],

Water Control and Improvement District 99 and 110 [5],

and a range of districts that haven't had enough contact with local activists to realize that they need to put a comprehensive budget up on their websites [6],

Most people may not realize until they need the services, but there's also a Harris County Hospital District. 50% of its $1,301.6M budget is from property taxes [7]. When you read the report on this organization, a significant portion of its patients receive Medicaid or Medicare. However, 62.4% of its budget covers uninsured patients as well. My brother-in-law was uninsured when he got appendicitis as a kid. He nearly died, and it was Harris County's Hospital District that saved him. As an adult, he's paid several times over the cost of that treatment in property taxes, and we all appreciate his and others having access to medical facilities.

Finally, there's the Harris County Department of Education (HCDE). 30% of its $78.9M budget comes from local taxes [8]. This organization is an interesting one. The former Dallas County Department of Education only provided bus services to area school districts. In stark contrast, the Harris County Dept of Education (HCDE) constantly works to increase the economic power of area school districts. For example, instead of each district having to pay for specialized education for a few students at great cost, HCDE aggregates the demand for these services into a county facility. One facility, High Point, works to educate troubled children while also providing the service they need to deal with the violence, criminal activity, and other issues in their lives. HCDE constantly writes proposals to government and private programs for support to regional school districts. Full disclosure: my business, ACS Engineering & Safety, has a contract with HCDE to provide safety training to area school districts. Note: This only makes us an approved vendor; we have not received a single dollar from the HCDE.

WHY would Ms. Swanson want to eliminate all of this?

While our communities prosper as a result of the services provided by these organizations, property taxes ARE high compared to other areas in the US. One reason is that we don't have an income tax, and government requires money from some source in order to function. Fees and sales taxes are other sources of funding. No one really talks about fees; there are issues which would require another article in order to discuss. Sales taxes fall most heavily, PROPORTIONALLY on poorer Texans. The way this works is that if you're paying a 20% sales tax (the effect of eliminating property taxes), then the worker at Walmart loses a far greater percent of her paycheck than the Exxon executive shopping there. As an exact sum, the Exxon exec is going to be paying more because he'll also be purchasing more; however, as a % of one's paycheck, the Walmart employee is going to be paying a hefty amount from the little she gets. When it comes to high ticket items, it's not uncommon for these to be excluded from the higher sales taxes because the people that can afford them could just as easily purchase them from outside of the state.

So let's take a closer look at Ms. Swanson's financial constituents, those that are contributing to her success as a candidate and compare her to the challenger in her primary race, Mr. James Wilson (see the table below assembled from financial filings at the Texas Ethics Commission).

Two things are clear about Ms. Swanson:

(1) 90% of her donations come from individuals and groups located outside of her district; and

(2) These out-of-district contributions comprise 5 TIMES more than her paycheck from the State of Texas to do her job.*

Now let's look at their policy positions relative to local property taxes: Mr. Wilson would work to use state funds in helping flooded homeowners meet their school property tax obligations and sees fire, ambulance, police, water, infrastructure and schools as essential services for a successful community. Ms. Swanson wants to eliminate and/or severely cripple all of these organizations' ability to do their jobs. Mr. Wilson has 80% of his contributions coming from out-of-district sources for a total that is LESS THAN HALF of what the State of Texas would pay him to serve. Ms. Swanson has 90% of her contributions coming from out-of-district sources, and that amount SWAMPS any income she receives from the State of Texas to serve her community.

The money here paints a clear picture of who would serve their VOTING constituents interests. NOT Ms. Swanson, whose financial constituents have zero interest in our community's health.

VOTE IN THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY ON TUESDAY

VOTE FOR JAMES WILSON

*The overall total of contributions that were received by Ms. Swanson and Mr. Wilson were divided by the amount of time that each would have served on becoming an officeholder. Ms. Swanson has two runs for a total of 4 years as an officeholder from these. Mr. Wilson has run three times for a total of 8 years as an officeholder. Multiply the annual legislator paycheck by the number of years winners of the election would serve, and then divide the total contributions by this number.

References

[1] "For one Republican, a day of truth-telling about Texas, schools and taxes"

http://www.star-telegram.com/o...

[2] "Rep. Valoree Swanson files bill to abolish property taxes"

By Anna Dembowski
Jan. 24, 2017
https://communityimpact.com/houston/tomball-magnolia/at-the-capitol/2017/01/24/rep-valoree-swanson-files-bill-abolish-property-taxes/

[3] Spring ISD Budget (~10.4% goes to administrators, 62.4% to instruction, & the remainder to facilities/services):
https://www.springisd.org/cms/lib/TX01918331/Centricity/Domain/72/2016-17%20Adopted%20Budget.pdf

Lone Star College System Budget (~10.6% goes to administrators, 33.2% to instruction, & the remainder to facilities/services):
http://www.lonestar.edu/departments/accounting/August312017.pdf

[4] Harris County: http://www.harriscountytx.gov/CmpDocuments/74/Budget/FY18%20Organizational%20Budgets.pdf

[5] Harris County Water Control & Improvement District 99 (no bonds):
http://www14.tceq.texas.gov/iwud/dist/index.cfm?fuseaction=DetailDistrict&ID=11963&command=list&name=HARRIS%20COUNTY%20WCID%2099

Harris County Water Control & Improvement District 110 (no bonds):
http://www14.tceq.texas.gov/iwud/dist/index.cfm?fuseaction=DetailDistrict&ID=11970&command=list&name=HARRIS%20COUNTY%20WCID%20110

North Harris County Regional Water Authority information obtained from my water bill:

[6] Harris County Flood Control District Projects: https://www.hcfcd.org/media/2271/hcfcd_fy2018_cip_cc_letter.pdf

Port of Houston Authority Budget:
http://porthouston.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/PHA-CAFR-2016-2.pdf

Harris County Emegency Services District 7 (Spring Fire Department) Budget:
http://hcesd7.org/budget.asp

Harris County Emergency Services District 11 (Cypress Creek EMS) Budget:
http://esd11.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Minutes-08-17-17-Regular-Meeting-EXECUTED-00238468xAB154.pdf

[7] Harris County Hospital District (62.4% Uninsured) Budget:
https://www.harrishealth.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/annual-reports/annual-report-2016.pdf

[8] Harris County Dept. of Education (including specialized contracts/services for area schools) Budget:
http://www.hcde-texas.org/media/4507/2016_comprehensive_annual_financial_report.pdf