Taco Loco
Tired and Lazy, married to ‘The Laundry Fairy’
It doesn't matter, the county will pull the sale record and say you paid this much, therefore the property value and taxes go up.
The Home Improvement Thread
- Thread starter texasislandboy
- Start date
It doesn't matter, the county will pull the sale record and say you paid this much, therefore the property value and taxes go up.
Taco Loco
Tired and Lazy, married to ‘The Laundry Fairy’
xJuice
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately as property value goes up, the districts don't see any more money. The way I was told was the state assigns a dollar amount to each district of what it deems that district can run off of. The state supplements the districts income up to that pre-determined amount. Any extra dollars the state brings in from the school taxes stays with the state and goes to who knows what else. Some one correct me if I'm wrong.
And generally in this area, most of the major campus additions/upgrades usually come from bond packages anyhow.
My wife was just complaining about her computer lab not getting upgraded computers like it was originally scheduled to, but all the teacher computers just got upgraded that weren't scheduled....
The county I grew up in has a nuclear power plant and is extremely small. The tax value of the nuclear plant provided up to 90% of the county tax income for decades so the local appraisal district kept property tax values down so as to not have a huge surplus. It was a fringe benefit of having a nuclear power plant in our backyard.
Fast forward 25 years and the state is coming down on the counties that kept property values down on purpose. The chief appraiser has been having to raise values the max every year for the last three years. The state is pissed they were being "cheated" the extra tax income from property owners. It is a hose job that is coming from the state and trickling down.
Austin is the source of 90% of Texas' pr problems.
* I know of a few examples where the tax value was roughly 1/10th market value due to the old good ol' buy system keeping values down. Lots of people were running rock and sand businesses out of fields that were taxed as ag use but had not had a cow on them in decades. So there were some shady dealings the previous appraiser was letting happen.
Fast forward 25 years and the state is coming down on the counties that kept property values down on purpose. The chief appraiser has been having to raise values the max every year for the last three years. The state is pissed they were being "cheated" the extra tax income from property owners. It is a hose job that is coming from the state and trickling down.
Austin is the source of 90% of Texas' pr problems.
* I know of a few examples where the tax value was roughly 1/10th market value due to the old good ol' buy system keeping values down. Lots of people were running rock and sand businesses out of fields that were taxed as ag use but had not had a cow on them in decades. So there were some shady dealings the previous appraiser was letting happen.
Silverback
Lima Gulf Bravo Foxtrot Juliet Bravo
tex
That's Mr Asshole to you
Arlington passed a $600m bond package a few years ago so our property taxes went up for that. During that time my wife's detached classroom smelled like mold from a leaky roof. After 2 years of complaining the principle or admin said it was not a problem. Fast forward a summer and opening the room up for the first time in months after no AC running and the smelled almost knocked you over. I forbid her to go in and after a few days of talking with the principle it was discovered the entire room was taken over from mold. Moved her to another room and "fixed" her old room.
Yea... incase you can't tell I don't like the school district in I'm. Fucking political beyond what I ever thought a school district could ever be.
balakay
BabyMax
It's all of them. My mom's district is just as bad. Luckily about two years ago, a bond finally passed for almost $1 billion to build a completely new high school, renovate the existing one into a CTE center, and do some renovations on the older elementary schools (the new football stadium did not pass). The old high school (the same one my parents graduated from in the early 80s and me and my sister graduated from in 2009 and 2011) was pretty much the same for those 30 some odd years with only minor updates when forced to. The whole thing was full of mold, leaks, and rotting staircases. Once the bond passed, they immediately resolved all (supposedly) the issues. But I haven't been in it since.
Silverback
Lima Gulf Bravo Foxtrot Juliet Bravo
Our neighborhood is growing so fast the city was playing catch-up with schools but they seem to have got ahead of it for a little bit. There are 4 elementary schools within a mile of my house so they are trying. But while they are adding schools and more houses the roads and infrastructure SUCK!. Nobody had the foresight to build wider roads, or fix the shitty ones we do have. Now they are playing catch-up on that and it really sucks.
tex
That's Mr Asshole to you
And they build the roads just big enough based on the dates used when they surveyed it. Then 2 years later when they are done it' not big enough due to the 2 years of growth.
Silverback
Lima Gulf Bravo Foxtrot Juliet Bravo
yep.
achirdo
2WD FTW
Not sure. Either way the county figured out what I paid for it last year and now I'm SOL
achirdo
2WD FTW
This
Taco Loco
Tired and Lazy, married to ‘The Laundry Fairy’
There is one way around this in Texas, if you have a Trust and the Trust purchases the home, the records can be sealed without the county knowing what was paid for the property or house. Of course this would be a liquid transaction on your Trust's part. The Trust has other features as well, I need to follow up with our friend.
This something I'm going to consider for my next purchase, I learned this from an experienced real estate agent that attends our church.
Sounds like all the talk in this thread lately is geared towards a Sheep Build!
It's unreal how political it is. Even the small town I live in is really bad. The school district was paying a $1,200 for a load of concrete that I could get for $400. My buddy is a PM for a construction company that only works on schools. The stories he tells about the decisions these people make man...
I'm in the unpopular group in that I always vote against school bonds. The school council literally pisses away the money and my great grandkids will still be paying taxes on those bonds. School kids don't need the latest and greatest iPad's or computers to learn...
Edit: And speaking from a construction background, the Administration is making every school in our district look the same. So every elementary, jr. high and high school building will all look the same which is a dark red brick building that's ugly as hell. Gone is all the cute little quirks the schools had with the mascot of each school painted on the sides of the building. They have also put up huge ugly gates around each school which makes it feel like a prison. The gates will stop noone from really entering if they want to. Such a waste of money. If I was a child going to those schools, I'd be intimidated just from appearance of the building.
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Taco Loco
Tired and Lazy, married to ‘The Laundry Fairy’
Our school district can't afford those new devices because everyone in the elementary schools are on the free breakfast and lunch program.
The counties need one centralized Administration and eliminate all these ISD's Administrations with all the waste and abuse that goes on.
achirdo
2WD FTW
You know what's more inefficient than small. Government organizations? Bigger ones
Taco Loco
Tired and Lazy, married to ‘The Laundry Fairy’
Maybe I didn't clearly word that.
A central county ISD would be slightly larger than just one of the current ISD Administration's, all the different ISD Administrations within your county would be eliminated, which means significant savings to the schools and should be a reduction in school property taxes.
side track here...15 years ago you could walk into a Texas DPS location and renew your drivers license, sometimes it was a long line and other times it wasn't too bad. There was numerous clerks back then and your drivers license was printed off right there while you waited.
Now there is half the clerks in these locations same long line, and sometimes it's not, and when you renew your drivers license and it's now mailed to you within 3 weeks.
There are 254 counties in Texas, and the medium to large population counties have multiple DPS locations within the same county.
Our tax dollars no longer have to buy 500+ machines to print off drivers licenses, it has been centralized and it's cost efficient.
All these ISD's have a common purpose, educate kids so they graduate and (temp to) make them successful young adults after completing primary and secondary education. All the ISD's are mandated by the state to teach xyz. Some ISD's have very nice central locations for sports, and then many ISD's compete with each other on who can spend the most money for these 50 million dollars football stadiums. Maybe I don't pay taxes in that particular ISD zoning, but they built a 50 mil stadium in my county which now requires more resources from the county as a whole.