Blog 3 Critical Thinking

Kallison: Texas needs school finance reforms

James "Kal" Kallison, Local Contributor

    Texas needs school finance reforms is an article in the Austin American Statesman  surrounding the dispute to determine who should regulate schools property taxes, school officials or the legislator? Several schools have joined together in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Texas school finance system. There are four such lawsuits, collectively representing about half of the state's school districts and 60 percent of its student population. The schools participating in the law suit are Bluff Dale, southwest Fort Worth, Houston school district, Austin and Round Rock district.

Texas School Finance... Plain and Simple

     An argument to determine if the state school finance system produce equivalent revenue for all school districts regardless of the property wealth, assuming the same level of tax effort?
     Another argument includes a process called equalization, the Texas school finance system compensates for discrepancies in property wealth by supplementing local property tax revenue with state funds. This allows the poorer districts to get larger state aid. In doing so the state cannot afford to “equalize” revenue to match the very wealthiest district in the state, but instead it equalizes to a lower specific level of wealth.
     Over 200 districts including Austin gave back money from their school property tax revenue to the state in direct proportion to wealth. The richer the district the greater the amount of recaptured revenue. Most of the districts agree that the current amount of the revenue after recapture is still not enough to ensure an adequate education for children, as required by the Texas Constitution.
     The past legislative session, the state reneged on it hold harmless provision and dealt with the state revenue shortage by assigning reductions in funding over $5 million to schools districts across the stated.
     The writer was able to keep the attention of the readers by using his personal opinions and how it affects his school district Eames.  He's able to capture the audience of schools, parents and students though out the article.  The Eames school district had lost in revenue, increased teaching loads, frozen salaries, increase class size, cutting the number of counselors, teachers and bus drivers. These measures forced the school districts to come up with other ways to try and raise revenue.
     The value of the article clearly, supports how the school districts have to take on a great burden of this magnitude in an effort to provide our children's future education.  Sooner or later the government would have to provide some type of financial support.   The state school finance system does not provide a constitutionally required adequate education for all four lawsuits maintain that the current system violates the prohibition against state property tax.
     I'm in agreement with the school districts filling the lawsuit in an effort to better the futures of our children.

Austin may ban most plastic, paper bags - Blog 2

Austin may ban most plastic, paper bags

--Alberto Martinez/AMERICAN-STATESMAN 

The City of Austin might enact one of the broadest bag bans in the nation and prohibit disposable paper and plastic bags at all checkout counters starting in January 2016.

 The City Council ask the city staffers to begin writing a plastic bag ban back in August, to determine whether the ban should apply to all retailers and to paper bags also.  The ban drafted would apply to retailers big and small and encompass single-user paper and plastic. This would also ban such bags at City of Austin facilities, at events held on city property and sponsored events.

Bob Gedert, director of Austin Resource Recovery, the city department who wrote the draft ban and handles trash collection and recycling indicated that Austin would be one of only a few U.S. cities to ban both plastic and paper bags.  More than two dozen U.S. cities have enacted bag bans since 2007, and most prohibit plastic as well as imposing a fee on paper bags

Retailers would be able to offer reusable bags, defined as those that had handles and made of fabric or durable materials or are thick paper or plastic bag with some recycled content.  After reading  Reusable Shopping Bags: Safe?  on sanitation of recycle bags, one would have to ask if this is for the better or worse.  Should we as consumers have an option to pay for paper or plastic bags?  

There are several exemptions for the ban, such as restaurants carryout bags, bags for wine and beer, dry cleaning bags, newspaper delivery bags and bags that hold meat, produce or pharmaceuticals.

            The Texas Retailers Association criticized the proposal.  They express their concerns that the citizens of Austin will reportedly have the most expensive and regressive bag tax in the entire country. Ronnie Volkening, the president and CEO fears that “Families and lower income citizens will be disproportionately affected by the rising costs.  

            The impact of the proposed draft ordinance on current voluntary recycling programs for plastic bags can only be negative.   The single-use carryout bags will be used only upon request and a charge of 25 cents per bag to the customer as of January 1, 2013.  The city would get 22.5 cents of every 25 cents retailers charge for single-use bags from 2013 to 2016. The retailers would keep the rest. The city would use the funds to promote the use of reusable carryout bags, according to the draft ordinance. The full ban would begin January 1, 2016.

Bag Monster vs. Austin City Council

 The importance of this article to all Americans would be to determine if you would like to live in a world of Bag Monsters or supporting the ban of plastic bags in order to improve the environment.