Legislative Update

BACK TO SCHOOL

The new superintendent aims to put HISD back on track.

IT IS HARD to think of any level of government that impacts an apartment community more than the local school district.

On the expense side, property taxes are increasingly becoming the primary driver of apartment rent increases. Two-thirds of the property taxes you pay typically go to your local school district, with the city, county and various special districts splitting up the other third. The Houston Independent School District alone collects nearly $1.8 billion in property taxes.

On the value side of the equation, the quality of the schools to which your property is zoned has a major impact on occupancy and rental rates. Families with children are far more likely to lease at a property zoned for high-performing schools.

Less direct, but no less important, is the critical mission of local schools. An educated workforce influences business and economic growth to the Houston area. Without quality local schools, many major employers, who might appreciate Houston’s business climate, may be unable to attract the workers they need to do business here.

Despite all this, Houston’s business community has rarely engaged in school board races. Business political action committees contribute lightly, if at all, to these races and almost never expend any energy recruiting candidates.

How many of us know our local school district trustee? How many of us can name any school district trustee?

Some of us can name some HISD trustees, but for all the wrong reasons. The HISD board has been in the news frequently over the past several years for its infighting and dysfunction, even while teetering on the edge of a hostile takeover by the Texas Education Agency for failure to observe the Open Meetings Act and laws related to contracting and maintaining schools that fail to meet even minimum standards year after year. An HISD administrator pleaded guilty last year to falsifying SAT and ACT scores in exchange for bribes, and the former Chief Operating Officer is being sued in federal court for taking kickbacks from landscape contractors for projects that were never performed.

As distressing as this is, there is reason for optimism. The new HISD superintendent is Millard House II. He was selected unanimously by a board that has had trouble agreeing on anything – especially a major decision like this one. House has more than 25 years in education with a track record of excellence. He most recently served as the superintendent of the ClarksvilleMontgomery County School District (CMCSS) in Tennessee, where he was named superintendent of the year for his region. While individual recognition is impressive, he claims particular pride in CMCSS having been named a “board of distinction” for working together so professionally – an attribute he would like to bring to the HISD board.

The challenges of operating any large urban school district are immense, but Houston has some unique challenges. HISD is the largest school district in Texas, seventh largest in the United States, with nearly 200,000 students – 78.45% of whom qualify as economically disadvantaged.

Meeting with the Houston Region Business Coalition, a meeting co-sponsored by the Houston Apartment Association in July, House explained some of his ideas for improving the quality of HISD schools by examining the ways personnel and facilities are used and by partnering with area universities to produce more teaching professionals. Better financial management and transparency will be important, as well as a greater focus on teaching. House is already implementing a plan to bring administrators and staff with teaching experience back into the classroom to deal with a critical shortage of teachers for the fall semester.

Our new HISD superintendent clearly wants more input from the local business community, and we should all look for opportunities to be better partners with all of our local school districts. To learn more about who is on the HISD board, track the decisions they make and learn how you can get involved, go to the board website: https://www.houstonisd.org/BOARD.

Extended Eviction Moratorium

As you have seen in the news, the Centers for Disease Control Eviction Moratorium was extended through October 3 for counties with a “substantial” or “high” level of coronavirus transmission. All counties in the Houston area fall into this category at press time, but you can check the status of all counties nationwide on the CDC website.

The industry continues to work with the Houston/Harris County Rental Assistance Program, Texas Rent Relief and other various city and county assistance programs. Rental assistance has been and continues to be available for any resident who needs help.

A federal district court in Tyler, Texas previously found the CDC order unconstitutional and held that evictions were an exclusive function of state government. The case was brought by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) on behalf of several apartment owners. The case has been appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the Texas Apartment Association has submitted an amicus curiae brief arguing for the owners. In a separate case, owners in Alabama and Georgia filed motions asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule the moratorium unconstitutional. The Supreme Court’s most recent ruling strongly implied that the moratorium would be found unconstitutional if extended past July 31.

Meanwhile, the National Apartment Association filed a lawsuit seeking compensation for business losses suffered under the moratorium. The CDC’s protracted moratorium is financially damaging rental housing providers and violating rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and NAA is fighting head-on to ensure our members and the entire rental housing industry are made whole and that similar “emergency measures” cannot be enacted again.