Larry T. Spider

Is the Texas GOP’s aversion to forcing them into mental health facilities purely financial? My family is almost all republicans in the Austin area and they are all for it. Now I don’t get into how we are going to pay for it with them….

If there is strong evidence of a person committing a crime and they are deemed unfit to stand trial, they should go to a state run mental health facility. They stay there until they can go to trial. Every major city should have at least one. It will be expensive, but that is the cost of not having psychos roaming the streets. There should be youth facilities as well to give these kids the around the clock care that they need. The most mentally ill child I ever worked with was completely incapable (at that time) of safely living in a home environment. She bounced around foster homes until a residential treatment facility in another city could take her in. It took a year of hell, worsening mental health, and a move to a completely new city to get help. Right now they just go to Dell children’s until they are deemed to not be a threat to themself or others then right back home.

Ha, just my luck. Well, in that case, who would you call to have them looked at?

Double pane, I assume aluminum. It’s ‘99 builder grade stuff. The locks have “GA” on them, which I assume is the manufacturer.

We’ll just go to a 4 day week for students because it’s the only way we can convince people to work in these conditions. Yet another one of my customer districts just announced this today. It’s about to be extremely common. Remember when we kept warning about how bad it was for teachers? The resounding response was to quit crying and find another job if you don’t like it. Well, here we are….

These issues usually start well before they are running around Austin with a machete on the streets. Typically, they were public school students with a special education label that severely limited consequences for disruptive, or even violent behavior. There are some limits, such as bringing drugs or a weapon on campus but the daily insanity is legally protected. I talk to special education directors at major districts all day for a living. The increase they are seeing in students that fit this profile is disturbing. Districts are not funded to hire a bunch of mental health therapists, and the ones that find the money can’t fill the positions. They are able to get some kids into residential or other treatment facilities but then are on the hook for the cost. I talked to a superintendent in another state that’s paying 100k per kid in some cases. When I was a principal, I shared 1 therapist with 5 other campuses. Regular school counselors are not equipped to deal with this level of need. Private schools aren’t taking these kids with their $10,000 voucher if we go that route. We need a school to treatment facility pipeline instead of the current school to the streets pipeline. The teachers deal with it until it’s the cops turn. It will take funding and changing laws, but the alternative is more people getting stabbed.

One of the recent hail storms cracked a couple of side windows on the house. Looking to pay for it out of pocket and not mess with insurance. Any recs on who would take on a small job like that at a fair price? I’m in western Round Rock, just east of Avery Ranch.

But then I have to piss a lot and flush the toilet more. Back yard it is!

Are there any places to get water data to compare normal usage to things like SXSW week. The hordes aren’t watering lawns but that’s a shitload of extra showers and toilet flushes. I’m sure it doesn’t have any measurable impact but I find it interesting.

Posted my Caesar’s review a couple of weeks ago but it’s pretty much what everyone here is saying. Outdated. The sad thing is that CET is in so much debt, I doubt it gets a major refresh anytime soon.

The reason they don’t leave it at or over 100% full is because the risk of flooding. Usually the ground is saturated so it would take much to generate a lot of runoff into the lake. I do think they have brought it down a little too far in the past though. For most of Austin’s history, floods have been a bigger threat than drought, but it’s time to recalibrate.

I think we had one of these threads on TOS and it’s time to fire it up again. Travis is currently at 631 feet, which is 38.1% full. One year ago on this day we were a little over 45% full, so we are in moderately worse shape. It’s stayed pretty flat over the last month, but now come the months with a chance to make a dent in the drought. We’ve seen it get low before, but there are significantly more people drawing from Travis than in years past. It got down to 618 in 2013. Buchanan is at 46.2% full FWIW.

Went for a short trip last month and stayed at Caesar’s. Gambled there plenty but never stayed there before. Had a room with a good view but overall it was very average and in need of a refresh. Honestly, the service was about as friendly/helpful as a local motel. Ate at Jaleo and China Poblano because I’m a slut for Jose Andres. Also the new Bobby Flay restaurant that replaced Mesa grill - Amalfi. Momofuku for lunch one day. All were good. Checked out Circa. It’s pretty bad ass if you are a sports bettor. Definitely worth the trip DT.

It’s February. “Quit yer bitching”

I was in Jacksonville for work last week. Wide and luxurious lanes over in Florida.

I was born in 1983 and have always paid attention to the stock market. When I was in high school in the late 90’s, stock investing seemed like and infinite money glitch. One down year in my lifetime and it was only -3% that year. People that were retiring around that time did amazingly well.

It will depend on commission but I should still be under 240k in 2024. Most of my savings is because I have no kids, no debt, a low mortgage, and a wife that doesn’t spend all my money 😀

In general special education is very expensive because of the intense labor costs. Some students require a 1 on 1 aide, special transportation, an extended school year, etc. All special ed students require a lower student to teacher ratio, specialized staff, evaluators, and people at admin to handle all of the required documentation. However, it is legally required, which gives districts two choices. Pay up front and do it right (smart choice). OR deal with even more expensive lawsuits, compensatory services, grievances being filed, possibly the state taking over your district/sped department, and the high staff turnover that goes with the above. Additionally, some of the kids with emotional/behavioral issues will turn your campuses into a shit show because their needs aren’t being appropriately addressed. So, to answer your question, most of these districts don’t have the resources but have to find the money anyway. Grants can help for a time but don’t last forever. It’s a rob Peter to pay Paul situation.

We provide the staff for a couple of reasons. We want to manage the program and we are usually coming into situations where things have been managed poorly. In some cases, the state has gotten involved. Probably more importantly, the districts we work with are really struggling to hire. Finding these specialized people is difficult and we often have to relocate staff to an underserved area. Districts are usually just trying to keep the ship afloat and don’t have the capacity to do this.

I sell customizable special education programs to school districts that are struggling to meet the needs of their students with the most needs. Think teachers, aides, behavior analysts, mental health therapists, etc. I get paid well on the base salary because there isn’t a huge pool of people with education administration experience as well as education sales experience. Also have to be willing to travel and help set these programs up. The commission percentage isn’t insane but when talking about hiring multiple staff members per class, you get into 7 figure proposals very quickly.

That’s why I have been looking at Kansas City. The math seems to work better and there is strong demand for rentals there. There are some places in the south where the math works as well.

Recently got a higher paying job so I have a good challenge on my hands. I can save about 4k or 5k per month plus commissions. Not counting commissions for now but it would be safe to expect another 50k or so. Could be much higher with accelerators. This money is based on take home with my 401k getting maxed at 23k. Already maxed my Roth and my wife’s traditional IRA for 2024. So the question is what’s next? Can’t do a HSA. Owe 135k on a house worth 600ish at a 3.25 rate. No debt other than the mortgage. No kids. 12 month emergency fund is done. Need a new car soon and saved enough cash for that. Want to buy a couple of rental properties and also have enough for 25% down on those. Im 40 and don’t have a ton of retirement savings because I wasn’t making a ton for a lot of my career. Paid into TRS for 15 years. Is a taxable brokerage account the only real option here? Can’t imagine throwing a bunch at the mortgage would be smart with the low rate. I can buy more rentals if I end up liking it, but that won’t be for a while.

Going to 7,000 and 8,000 this year.

Appreciate the perspective, especially from a lender’s viewpoint. Just want to clarify that a low cost of entry isn’t my main criteria. I’m more looking at the 1% rule, meaning that you can get 1% of the purchase price per month in rent. Pretty easy way to tell if you can cash flow assuming 25% down. I do feel that I could get better appreciation in the major Texas markets. However, only putting 25% down would leave me in the hole each month. As a quick example, if somebody purchased my home using the same metrics, they would have to put about 150k down and would have about a $3,600 monthly payment with no repairs. It would rent for about $2,300. I know there are better areas in Texas for rentals than my current neighborhood, but I’m not finding much of anything that meets the 1% rule.

This is actually something that I have been looking into and would love opinions from the experienced landlords on here. I’m in Austin and it looks pretty hard to cash flow here unless you buy the house outright, which is expensive and hard to scale unless you are already rich. I’ve been talking to a realtor in a midwestern city with more affordable homes and it’s not a shithole/dying city. He was an investor long before he became a realtor, owns 20+ properties, has good connections with management companies, and has several out of state investors he works with. He would tour the homes, video, make an offer, then I would go up there during the option period to view in person. If it’s going well, I could eventually to more than 1 at a time. From my own research, it looks possible to invest with the 1% rule there and houses that don’t need much/any work are 100k-130k. They get rented fast and have a chance of ok appreciation. Nothing like what the Austin market has seen, obviously. Thoughts on being an out of state landlord using a property management company?