At All Costs Recapturing program impacts district budget, as community population increases

Natalia

Zavaleta | Co-Editor

As changes are being made to school budgets and district programs, the question of how schools are funded begins to be asked. There are two main sources from which public and charter schools are funded: local and state taxes. Private schools get their money from tuition paid by parents. In 1994 in the state of Texas, the government instituted a program that sent excess tax collection from property taxes back to the state. This process became known as recapturing. “They used to call it ‘Robin Hood,’” principal Michael Grebb said. “You ‘steal’ from the rich to give it to the poor, but the more political term is called recapture. You have enrollment, and the state tells us that we can spend so much per student. Once property values go over that amount, then you have excess money. That money goes back to the state and then it’s distributed to other school districts. If we had five kids, and our property taxes added up to $50,000, each kid would get $5,000. Then the money that is left over goes back to the state because it is based on enrollment and per kids spending.”

According to PfISD’s Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Land, the state is expected to provide $20 million to the district. Due to the amount of students in each school within the district, the total revenue from property taxes is the same, therefore no money is required to be sent back to the state.

“Education is funded out of property taxes,” Grebb said. “I think Pflugerville has accelerated recapturing because the housing values went up so much, so fast, that now there’s an excess of money. That wasn’t there before because a house that used to be $250,000 now costs $500,000. So it’s generating more money. We were a fast growing district there for a while, but now with the charter schools, homeschooling, and the pandemic, we have slowed down.”

Before the process was instituted, schools within a district that were in different socioeconomic areas were seen as unequal and it separated them amongst themselves.

“Some districts are getting penalized because they are being forced to give back money, money that could be used within their own districts,” Grebb said. “They should let them do that first and take care of all their needs. I’ve worked at districts that didn’t have Robin Hood and I worked in Pflugerville before it was Robin Hood. I think that the basic allotment per student should be raised because it’s more expensive with inflation– electricity and water–that you should raise that allotment and have some form of recapture but allow the district to control where the money goes. And if there’s excess, spread the love around the state.”