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Local Texas News
Legislation Filed to Abolish the Austin City Council
The legislation, if enacted, would create a state-run District of Austin.
Sabine County Tax Trends: Rising Appraisals Drive Increased Revenues
Even if tax rates are kept in check, rising appraisals can eat up any savings citizens would otherwise see.
Houston Teen Killed by Train, Union Pacific Stops Trains Near Milby High During School Hours
The City of Houston is looking into building a skybridge over the tracks for student use.
Are Houston Police Department Staffing Shortages an Underpayment Issue?
Other major cities in Texas offer nearly $10,000 or more for starting salaries.
Local Archive
Budget gimmicks hide behind lack of transparency
In the coming months, state agencies will begin submitting their spending requests to the Legislative Budget Board as part of their Legislative Appropriations Requests for the 2014-2015 biennium budget. These requests will include the use of general revenue dedicated...
Keeping our focus against the Obama machine
On Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory led his interview with Newt Gingrich with a question about Rush Limbaugh and contraception. Gingrich rightly took Gregory to task for letting the conversation go off the rails from the get-go; Gregory was buying into and...
Miscellaneous Waste in Elgin Middle School
How many breakfast tacos does it take to raise test scores? That’s a question parents should be asking Elgin Middle School administrators. They’ve been siphoning funds designated for educational expenses in order to feed themselves and their staff, while the district...
Would Today’s GOP Back Sam Houston?
Most Americans know about the brave group of Texans who met 176 years ago at Washington-on-the-Brazos to demand their God-given freedoms from a despot named Santa Anna, who was almost as unpopular in Mexico as in Texas. But on college campuses nationwide,...
Home-rule could be path to efficiency
Everybody is in agreement: the Texas school finance system is broken and in need of a major overhaul. Spending on the Foundation School Program has grown by 268% since 1987 and spending per pupil has grown by 141% since 1987, and in the same period, student enrollment...
$20 million on iPads from district suing state
What if your school district had joined a lawsuit against the state, arguing that it was receiving insufficient funding under the current school finance system...and then announced that it would provide iPod Touches and iPads to students at the stunning cost of $20...
Knock-Off Design & Over Budget
Well, you gotta hand it to Dallas politicians and the team at TxDOT: they not only paid a premium for an artsy, one-of-a-kind bridge that's coming in far over budget, but it turns out the bridge isn't all that original, either. And neither is the wasteful hit to the...
In defense of outsourcing entertainment
Small-town America, the collective memory that is often embellished, had a unique function that some believe should be carried over as governments grow ever larger and more intrusive. Providing entertainment, or beauty, or other aesthetic pleasure could be a viable...
New school lawsuit doesn’t assume money is the only issue
Now this is more like it. A lawsuit about Texas schools that focuses on what’s wrong, instead of how to throw more money at the system: The lawsuit represents a new angle on the funding issue — one that focuses not on whether the state adequately pays for schools but...