Everything posted by Texas Jeff
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2022 Property Tax Values are out
Looks like Travis County appraisals are coming out. My house is up 89% from last year. Not a typo. 89%. Should I protest? I would have to get them to agree to reduce their valuation by almost 45% to benefit. The city of Austin needs to change the Project Connect tax from a fixed number of cents to a percentage of the budget or it's going to eat the rest of the city budget.
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Downtown Projects
Do you think we are done with cost overruns for Project Connect? Light rail is nice but education should be a higher priority. Just this first cost overrun is enough money to fix about all of the problems with Austin ISD. I'm not talking water parks and planetariums -- hey we don't have the aspirations of La Joya. I mean modern buildings for all children that would replace buildings that are 50-70 years old. Not just for the east side or west side ... this would fix the entire district. Just this one overrun. The $100 million for the tunnel extension on S. Congress would buy three elementary schools serving 1,800 kids. Or, if you are into football, three stadiums or six indoor practice facilities (ten if you build them without walls) or two really nice performing arts centers. Austin ISD has to come to the voters and justify new projects. Project Connect does not. Project Connect has a fixed number of cents of funding in the Austin city budget. The money goes to the Austin Transit Partnership, governed by a five person board with only one or two elected officials. There is no voter approval of projects other than the initial proposal. If property tax values rise faster than 3.5% per year, the percentage of the city budget given to ATP will increase over time. It is a money machine.
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2022 Property Tax Values are out
La Joya ISD's water park complex also includes a natatorium, a planetarium and a district-owned golf course. This was not a bond-funded project. The water park and the golf course are losing money, and the losses are being covered by their general fund. About 85% of their general fund revenue is either from the feds or the states. Only 15% of the money is coming from local tax revenue. Melissa ISD, with a district enrollment of 4,000 and a Robin Hood payment of zero, owns this sweet indoor practice facility with an outdoor turf football field. A warning to Westlake: your facilities are falling behind Melissa: https://www.hwh1887.com/work/melissa-isd-case-study I was amazed during my travels with my kid's high school band when we visited San Marcos, home of another zero Robin Hood payment, and saw their million dollar Jumbotron. Robin Hood has been GREAT for small town ISDs who are not shy about making crazy purchases. Austin ISD struggles with Robin Hood for sure, but they've let their assets fall apart while these smaller districts have been spending and spending and spending.
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2022 Property Tax Values are out
This is not going to improve your mood, but your $3,900 just went to the state’s general revenue fund. The state is giving part of the Robin Hood money to other school districts, but not all of it.
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What new UT gear are you looking to buy this year?
As a US taxpayer, I'm counting this:
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AISD's (and other districts) Plans for Schools Starting August 18
The short answer is no. The rules changed in 2019 with HB 3, and cost of living is not a big factor. There is a giant formula that determines each district's entitlement per child. The district gets their entitlement times the number of kids in the district. Everything else goes to recapture. The state could help AISD by accounting for the local cost of living and raising the entitlement so that the district could pay teachers enough for housing expenses, but that's not part of the current formula. It seems so obvious ... collect local property taxes and give enough to local teachers so that the teachers can live in the community they serve ... but it's not being done today.
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"At the start of 2022, 64% of the U.S. population was living paycheck to paycheck"
And when you get on the bus, a lot of times you have it to yourself, which is nice…. ;-) I’m not buying that energy costs are too high until I see folks on the bus. The cost in time to take the bus is higher that the cost of gas for most people, unless you live and work really close to stops with a direct bus.
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Any thoughts on these colleges?
Just my opinion here ... but I think that today's kids are being rammed through a shallow education too fast, with no time for deep understanding. It looks advanced but it's really just a speed run through school. Take calculus, for example. It used to be a nice capstone to your high school education, maybe a preview of your freshman year. Then, it wasn't enough to take calculus your senior year, you had to take AP Calc. Then, hey, let's split it into AB and BC. Of course, your talented kid needs to take BC right? AB must suck, it's like one less letter. Some folks said, hey, not good enough, my kid needs to take it as a junior. That way their kid can get a 5, so that they can put that 5 on their college apps, so that they can get into a good school where ... upon arrival ... the parents will find that their burnt out kid needs only 2.5 more years of upper division classes to graduate. However ... the kid never really learned mathematics but just skimmed over the top of it and learned the material for the test. Everyone needs to chill out and slow down, take the time to learn something really well, figure out their passion. Last weekend, I was touring a college campus with my high school senior. The tour guide was an Industrial Engineering major. He said that he hated a LOT of his engineering classes, but that was great because it was helping him narrow down his interests. He said he loved a few of them, and that had taken him in a particular direction, and that was what he was going to do after school.
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AISD's (and other districts) Plans for Schools Starting August 18
If I had one guess I would guess this is Westlake. They found out Bowie had a parking garage. They were not happy ... therefore must have parking garage.
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Ukraine War
Remember all those times in our history when a past president has gone on national TV and taken a dump on the current president? All those times when a national news network has happily given the past president airtime to do this without saying "hold on partner, we're all on Team America here". Remember all those times? Remember? Find one! ... geez what an ass.
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Non Netflix/Amazon Streaming Recommendations & Other Random Streaming Shit
If you missed Whiplash, it's on Hulu.
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SOMEBODY FLIPPING ONE FUCKING SWITCH WOULD HAVE KEPT AUSTIN IN WATER
I just compared my city of Austin tax bill from the start of Adler's term up until the tax bill I paid in January. It's 47% higher now than seven years ago. Some of that would have happened with inflation but not 47%. My Austin Energy bill is up 35% over the same time period and I know I use less power and water now than I did then. With inflation that number should have been 20-25%. The bucks are flowing in -- they just are not making it to the people charged with delivering clean water to our community.
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Oh shit: New pillow guy lawsuit coming "in two weeks"
Das Pflufferer
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Its happening (stadium renovations)
They could knock down Jester West and go tall. Build a parking garage under it, a rec center at ground level, and a new supertall dorm on top. it's kinda close to Gregory, so that doesn't help spread the gyms out. It would be nice to have a rec center in west campus but UT doesn't have the room.
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Its happening (stadium renovations)
BTW, the current School of Social Work building used to be a Austin junior high school. It predates Austin ISD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Junior_High_School https://www.statesman.com/story/news/local/2019/06/29/austins-first-desegregated-junior-high-celebrates-class-reunion/4793366007/ You can still see what was the gym, or maybe it's the auditorium, if you walk between the school and the swim center. It's a pretty cool little building for a middle school.
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SOMEBODY FLIPPING ONE FUCKING SWITCH WOULD HAVE KEPT AUSTIN IN WATER
Let's be honest, no one's getting fired over this shit. More like chewed out. They've been chewed out before.
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SOMEBODY FLIPPING ONE FUCKING SWITCH WOULD HAVE KEPT AUSTIN IN WATER
They sent the samples in via Cap Metro.
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SOMEBODY FLIPPING ONE FUCKING SWITCH WOULD HAVE KEPT AUSTIN IN WATER
From the city press release: A multiple barrier failure treatment technique violation ... that was my hunch....
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SOMEBODY FLIPPING ONE FUCKING SWITCH WOULD HAVE KEPT AUSTIN IN WATER
From two days ago:
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SOMEBODY FLIPPING ONE FUCKING SWITCH WOULD HAVE KEPT AUSTIN IN WATER
Emily is not going to have a great week... My wife is watching figure skaters drink water before they go skate on frozen water and suddenly I'm jealous of places on earth with potable water...
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Cowboys vs 49ers: Wild Card Round
Mini-Ditka, I give the Cowboys fans a chance -- that would be a fair fight. Full sized Ditka, no way, I gotta take da Bears.
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Cowboys vs 49ers: Wild Card Round
Hypothetical situation... What if all of the Bears fans were, like, 14 inches tall? Who would be louder, regular sized Cowboys fans or the Bears mini-fans? One advantage of the mini-fans would be that you could really pack 'em in, tiny shoulder to tiny shoulder. One obvious disadvantage would be that they might be unable to see over the seat in front of them, thus making coordinated cheering less effective. Thoughts?
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College Football Is Stale and Boring
Who knows? Most schools play one decent school plus a slate of creme puffs. At least when conference champions battle it out for a championship, you can argue that it's a "national" championship.
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College Football Is Stale and Boring
Outside of their own conference, the two teams that played for the "national championship" beat: * #14 Clemson * #4 Cincinnati * #3 Michigan And these non-ranked teams: * UAB * Charleston Southern * Georgia Tech * Miami * Mercer * Southern Miss * New Mexico State Wow, "national" champions....
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AISD's (and other districts) Plans for Schools Starting August 18
Check out this site, if you are curious as to how any Texas district has been funded over the past five years: https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/school.finance/forecasting/financial_reports/1920_stacked_bar_charts.html You can compare any Texas school district to any other Texas school district, and it will break down how much money each district has had to spend on education and where it came from. Austin has lost a bunch to recapture but it does have access to about the same amount of money as surrounding districts. Some of those are poorer and some are wealthier. None are talking about cutting 21 million from the secondary school budget by overloading teachers. Austin has tiny schools. If you look at Austin plus all surrounding districts, there are 37 major high schools. Austin ISD operates 9 of the 11 smallest high schools. There are 63 middle schools in the area, and Austin has 7 of the 8 smallest middle schools. I think that's a lot of the bloat you mention. It's more expensive to maintain lots of extra buildings and hire all of those additional principals, admins, coaches, etc.