#TXLEGE: 10 cents of compression + Voter Control WITH TEETH = Good Enough (for now)

"Wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished,
But he who gathers by labor will increase."
Proverbs 13:11

[Note on terminology: Without getting into a long, boring, discussion of the technical aspects of the property tax system, every "cent of compression" on school taxes equals approximately a 1% cut.

=> "10 cents of compression" = approximately a 10% cut on school taxes.]

[Note II: We said approximately.  Your personal situation may vary based on any number of factors.  Cahnman's Musings is a political website, NOT a financial planning service.]

As we've been making the rounds in recent days, a consensus is beginning to emerge: If the 10-cent rate compression in the Senate version of the school finance bill survives the conference committee, AND a strong version of the voter control bill survives...then it probably makes sense to declare victory and go home.

At that point, you'd have a 7ish% outright cut to property tax bills.  You'd have the automatic election triggers to constrain future growth.  It's far from everything we'd like, but it's undeniably better than the status quo.  There's nothing stopping us from doing another 10-cent compression (or more) next session.

It's also achievable.  If there's political will.  Which brings us to the house.

We spoke yesterday to a source with close ties to house leadership.  According to this source, Speaker Bonnen has called the numbers underpinning the Senate bill "complete bullshit."  Bonnen has also called the Senate bill "a garbage bill" whose numbers don't add up.

We ran Bonnen's concerns by other sources who study these things in detail.  They said, even if Bonnen technically has a point about the details of the school finance, there's more than enough money in the budget to plug any shortfall.  Thus, Bonnen's only saying what he's saying to protect the spending in the budget.

Your guess is as good as ours as to how it plays out between now and sine die.

Bottom Line: It's an achievable objective.  They have enough money.  The next few weeks will be a very interesting statement of priorities....