It is aggravating when superintendents ask for more money because they are operating with a deficit but it’s infuriating when they ask for it while operating with a surplus!
That is the name of the game in Humble ISD where Superintendent Dr. Guy Sconzo is begging tax payers to approve a 13 cent tax hike on November 22. He complains that what we have in Texas is an “inequitable” system of funding schools when what we really have is an inequitable system of running schools.
HISD’s fund balance in 2000 was 6 million; today the coffers are filled to the brim at more than 23 million. And voters are supposed to buy a tax increase?
From 2002 to 2007 the average increase in both students and teachers was 5%. Over the same 5 years total expenditures skyrocketed an average of 18% each year. That increase increase in spending did not make its way to the class room where spending has also been holding steady at 5%.
In 2002 HISD boasted a recognized ranking with an almost 90% passing rate on the TAAS test. Now it is rated acceptable, though a 74% passing rate on today’s TAKS can hardly be stomached as acceptable.
Not only do you have local school officials trying to raise taxes in this case a H.D. 127 hopeful reared his head to approve of the effort. Joe Montemayor was on hand at the last board meeting to support the tax rollback election.
Joe Crabb, incumbent representative of H.D. 127, scored a perfect 100 on our Fiscal Responsibility Index and is just the caliber representative we need in order to bring about changes to our long defunct school spending system.
