I listened to Rocky Kirk, the superintendent of the Lake Travis ISD, today at a lunch.  Rocky gave an update on school district growth and a few other things.

At the end of Rocky's talk Russ Eitel asked a question about property tax reform.  Rocky told us that although many people think the state legislature ended what we call Robin, it really didn't.  Robin Hood is what we refer to in Texas when we talk about the reallocation of property tax collections.  Property wealthy areas send money to the state and the state sends the funds to other property poor districts.  For the Lake Travis ISD, this means that over 50% of our property tax collections go to the state for redistribution.  That is why our property taxes are so high in the Lake Travis ISD and other districts in the area.

Is this fair?  The property poor districts must love it.  I hate it.  If we weren't sending over $26 million to the state this fall, we might actually have money for our schools.  We might see the number of students to teachers drop rather than rise.  We might see some aids and Spanish teachers come back.  The cutting that has gone on has been unfair to the students.  We might even see a reduction in property taxes, which would make the area more affordable in terms of the cost of home ownership.

It is pretty amazing to me knowing that the Lake Travis ISD is educating more kids in other areas than within our own area.