I came back to Austin on April 17 with a set of firm goals in mind regarding what it would take for me to say this was a productive special session. When this latest session came to an end a month later, I saw historic progress made on all of these goals. The Texas Legislature, working in a bipartisan manner, produced lasting tax relief and education reforms that will move our state forward.

Here is a partial list of the goals I had for this legislative session and how those objectives were satisfied:


Goal: Craft a school finance system that eliminates an unconstitutional statewide property tax and satisfies the Texas Supreme Court.

Solution: The Texas Supreme Court said that local school districts needed to have "meaningful discretion" to set property tax rates below the current $1.50 tax cap. The Texas Legislature has supplied new funding to provide this discretion to local school boards to adopt lower tax rates, which will satisfy the constitutional test. These changes to the school finance system ensured that the schools will open on schedule this fall.



Goal: Significantly reduce local school property taxes.

Solution: Local school property taxes will be cut by one-third over the next two years. This is the largest property tax cut in Texas history.



Goal: Increase pay and benefits for school teachers, librarians, counselors, and school nurses.

Solution: The legislation approved included a $2,000 teacher pay raise, new options for earning incentive bonuses, and improved health care benefits.



Goal: Provide greater protection for the taxpayer from escalating property taxes.

Solution: The Texas Legislature passed tighter tax rollback election requirements, and future tax hikes over 4 cents on the effective tax rate will be subject to rollback. This reduced by one-third the amount of effective tax rate increases needed to trigger a rollback election.



Goal: Increase State of Texas support for public education.

Solution: The state will move from paying 38 percent of the cost of public education to covering half of it.



Goal: Reform an obsolete and loop-hole filled business franchise tax system that only applied to one in 16 Texas businesses. The corporations that paid the franchise tax were subjected to a high rate and faced economic pressure to restructure into other types of business entities that avoided the franchise tax entirely.

Solution: The Texas Legislature approved a fair taxation system that applies to all types of business entities that receive liability protection from the State of Texas. The tax rates are low and spread over a much wider base of business taxpayers. 



Goal: Encourage small business growth.

Solution: Small businesses pay large school property taxes, which will be cut substantially. Also, the new business tax exempts sole proprietorships and businesses generating less than $300,000 in revenue. This doubles the amount of the current small business tax exemption.



This legislative session also increased state funding for high school students, created a requirement for four years of secondary math and science as a condition of graduation, and established that the children in military families would have access to state-funded pre-kindergarten.


This was an ambitious session agenda by any measure and many predicted it would prove impossible to accomplish. However, lawmakers from all across Texas worked together to pass legislation that I believe will benefit taxpayers, teachers, and school children. While there is always more to do, I am proud of what was accomplished for Texas. It gives me something solid to build upon next January during the next regular session.


A detailed overview of the accomplishments of this latest special session was prepared by the non-partisan House Research Organization. It is available for the public at: http://www.house.state.tx.us/featured/schools&taxes79-13.pdf



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