Reading my copy of the Glen Rose Reporter newspaper, which has an article talking about how the school board was told by Wayne Rotan how they need to raise the tax rate. (again, I would point to their website but they haven't update it yet).  Essentially, it's for two reasons. The first is that the budget for the local Glen Rose School district is increasing. GRISD's board has to approve the Somervell County Central Appraisal District budget as well-remember how Duane Cox suddenly quit? Sounds like there were some, er *discrepancies* in the department and in order for CAD to fix it, they had to increase their budget. Still curious about what exactly happened.

The second reason has to do with the property tax *relief* bill that the Texas Lege passed. We told you! Don't vote for Perry again if you have a lick of sense. Here's whatPeter Stern said back in October 2007. And notice this about how Tom Pauken tries to say the problem was NOT with the Lege but the local districts. At any rate, I noticed an article from yesterday in the Dallas MOrning News about how Texas property tax relief is largely wiped out.

Several factors have combined to obscure the $7 billion tax cut," said Dale Craymer, president of the TTARA Research Foundation and author of the study, referring to the tax reform package of 2006 that reduced school property taxes and replaced the revenue with higher taxes on business and smokers.

Among the factors his study cited were rising property appraisals – the "highest in recent memory" in 2006 and 2007 – and "accelerated" property tax increases by cities, counties and special districts such as community college and hospital districts.

Another factor was the discretion that lawmakers gave school districts to slightly raise their property tax rates for local enrichment programs. A total of 1,006 of the state’s 1,026 districts used that discretion to raise their rates above the $1 rate (per $100 in valuation) originally set by the Legislature.

Most of the increases were to $1.04, the highest allowed without voter approval. Another 121 districts received voter approval to go above $1.04 – many of those going to the maximum allowable rate of $1.17. In addition, many districts collected more to pay off bonds for school construction.

Course the author of the study says it could have been worse. Here's who sits on the board of that org.

At any rate, Rotan explains that the *Robin Hood* system has taken back more of GRISD's money than has been sent back, since we're  a property-wealthy district. According to Rotan's math, that's a 44 percent increase in what gets sent to the State of Texas.

Third reason is that GRISD is paying well for faculty and staff. The Glen Rose Reporter newspaper has the details on this.

I notice there's going to be a public hearing on August 25th at 6:30 pm at the administration building. Meantime, if you're interested to see just WHAT GRISD is paying out, here's a link to what we put up yesterday.