" Perry's retaliation " : Oh, so that's how Perry got his School Finance Bill passed !

Tentative education bill isn't satisfactory to everyone
By Dave McNeely
May 21, 2006

Your job, Mr. Sharp - should you choose to accept it - is to devise a school finance tax restructuring plan that can pass a divided Texas Legislature that's tried and failed five times in three years, whose leaders don't much like each other.
This tape will self-destruct only slightly faster than previous attempts at tax reform.
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John Sharp, the former state comptroller, chose to accept it. After all, the Democrat had proposed the idea to his former Aggie buddy Rick Perry, who'd beaten Sharp for lieutenant governor in 1998 and became governor when George W. Bush became president.
The challenge: Cut local property taxes by a third. Put Robin Hood out to pasture. Replace the money by switching from the loophole-ridden franchise tax to a broader business tax many more pay.
It took 29 of the 30 days in a special session to do it. But Perry, House Speaker Tom Craddick and the Texas Senate's presiding officer, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, called it a landmark victory - especially with a June 1 court deadline looming to fix the system.
How about school policy?
Just the tax plan, Perry told Sharp. Leave any education changes, including teacher pay, for others to deal with, later.
The session had its critics. A handful of Democratic House members claimed credit for forcing the $2,000 teacher salary hike - $500 of it a reinstatement of an insurance stipend removed earlier - but said it should have been double or triple that. Earmarking the business tax solely for property tax reduction, with nothing for schools, is folly. And the tax package shifts tax burdens from those making well over $100,000 a year to those making less.
Democrats, led by Reps. Jim Dunnam of Waco, Pete Gallego of Alpine,and Garnet Coleman and Scott Hochberg of Houston, said the package also will dig the state into a $25 billion hole over the next five years, requiring either spending cuts or tax increases before long.
They were joined in that prediction by the Loud Grandma, State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the state's tax collector who's running for governor as an independent, but also the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank - and even the Legislature's own Legislative Budget Board.
Strayhorn challenged Perry to veto the bill. Perry said he would eagerly sign it, essentially saying the criticisms are questionable.

Getting the legislation through was a mixture of cooperating and co-opting. Perry handpicked the commission. Sharp took it around the state for public hearings. He and Perry cut deals with powerful lobby groups like the Realtors, car dealers and doctors, to get them to endorse the package even before all details were final. Other lobby groups, fearing Perry's retaliation, fell in line.

The share-the-wealth system set up in 1993 to achieve equal spending per student had richer districts sending money to poorer ones.
The state's share of public school funding gradually slipped to about 38 percent. But the tax rate had hit the cap of $1.50 per $100 valuation in hundreds of school districts. The Texas Supreme Court ruled that those school districts no longer had any leeway to set their tax rate, amounting to an unconstitutional statewide property tax.
Even opponents say the court will probably approve the plan, though there may be appeals to the court to amplify its earlier finding that the state should spend more on schools, and have a long-term plan.
Sharp and Perry claimed mission accomplished. But Dunnam said it has about as much meaning as President Bush's claim three years ago about the war in Iraq.
Dunnam, several other Democrats, and several lobbyists predict plenty of efforts to revise the package, when the Legislature returns in January for its 140-day regular session. The battle between tax cuts and more money for schools goes on.


Contact McNeely at dmcneely@austin.rr.com or (512) 458-2963.
source: http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/op_columns/article/0,1874,ABIL_7981_4715015,00.html