In Texas, the old hands say there are only two seasons: spring football and fall football. But lately there’s a year-round game getting played as well: the competition to build the most expensive high school football stadium in the world.
Why would relatively small exurban school districts like McKinney build enormous football stadiums that will sit empty most of the year (and are often less than half-full even on game day)?
Part of the answer involves the area’s projected future growth. The town’s population has tripled over the past fifteen years. In the 2000 Census, McKinney had 54,369 residents. The most recent estimate (July 1, 2015) put the population at 162,898. Rick McDaniel, superintendent of the McKinney ISD and a former high school football coach, seems to be confident that the spectacular new McKinney stadium will soon fill up. “We’re visionaries,” he told the Dallas Morning News, and said that the stadium was part of “a vision for McKinney ISD that will propel us forward for a long time.” (His office did not respond to requests for comment for this story.)
The structure of the Texas school system also seems to encourage such infrastructure spending. By law, each ISD board has the power to call referendums when they choose to raise bond money. They act and can raise funds separately from their local municipal governments. But the bond money can go only toward construction and renovation of facilities, acquisition of land, and purchase of equipment, not toward expanding education opportunities for students or paying for teachers. (Texas ranks 38th out of 50 states in per-pupil education spending; in McKinney, per-pupil expenditures totaled $7,345 in 2013, compared to a national average of $11,841, according to an Education Week analysis of federal data.)
Curtis Rath, a McKinney community activist and blogger on city politics, has been an aggressive critic of this arrangement on his site, Texas Transparency; there, fans and foes of the McKinney stadium project hotly debate the issue in the comments. Rath argues that firms that stood to benefit from construction projects joined forces with local landowners, contractors, boosters, and school officials to market the benefits of high-profile school structures to McKinney voters. “They sold it by overstating the need for the new stadium,” he says.
Along with the political and business forces pushing to build new facilities for which there may be questionable need, there’s also the “wow” factor. Like many fast-growth Sun Belt communities, the burgeoning municipalities north of Dallas span vast landscapes interlaced by highways, office parks, and new housing developments. With all of these towns scrambling for residents and businesses to move into their new neighborhoods and shopping centers, splashy sports facilities serve as branding tools.
McKinney City Manager Paul Grimes says that the new stadium will help him better market the town as it competes with Allen, Frisco, Plano and beyond. “While it is a significant investment,” he says via email, “the stadium will…help to attract visitors and families to our rapidly growing community.”
Though Texas's state government has a reputation for fiscal moderation, its localities collectively owe about $213 billion, up from $130 billion in 2006. In 2015 alone, the Texas Bond Review Board reports, localities issued nearly $39 billion in new debt, compared with $20 billion a decade ago. The board now estimates the state's per-capita local debt -- $8,350 -- to be the second-highest in the nation, trailing only New York's $10,465 debt per person.
The Texas debt frenzy's apologists contend that the Lone Star State's situation differs from those of other heavy-borrowing states like New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. New York has managed to amass its record obligations despite nearly stagnant population growth of just 401,000 people, a 2.1% increase, during the first decade of the new millennium. Texas's population, by contrast, expanded by 4.3 million, or nearly 21%, during that same period.
New York's school enrollment, a key factor in education borrowing, has shrunk by 6% since 2000, meaning about 180,000 fewer students in classrooms. In fast-growing Texas, by contrast, the schools have swelled with 1.1 million additional students, a 30% increase, since 2000.
Texas officials have rushed to build the most basic projects needed to accommodate so many newcomers. School-district borrowing accounts for 34%, or $72.3 billion, of the local debt -- the most of any category. Another major borrower: water districts, which are working to install essential hydration and sewage systems to help transform undeveloped land into new communities before new residents, and their tax dollars, even arrive.
But some critics point to troubling signs that the debt surge is also fueling a massive growth of government. Local debt has been rising at about twice the rate of population growth, plus inflation. The increase in school debt has been particularly alarming. In a 2013 study, the state comptroller's office found that over the previous ten years, debt more than doubled even in districts with falling enrollment. The cost of servicing new debt rose 125%, more than double the rate of spending growth.
To borrow all this money, Texas localities have resorted to financing techniques typically associated with struggling communities looking to push costs off into the hazy future. Texas municipalities have made liberal use of so-called capital-appreciation bonds, which let the issuer make no payments to bondholders for years. Such bonds often increase the total amount that a community must pony up over the long term, meaning big bills for future taxpayers.
Voters will face a test on Election Day, and whether they answer correctly will determine the future of the Houston Independent School District. It should be a simple question, but it's written in the obtuse vernacular of lawmakers who really don't want voters to understand it.
The ballot provision will ask voters to authorize the board of trustees of HISD to purchase attendance credits from the state with local tax revenue. That sounds like a good, progressive measure, but be warned - it is a trick question.
The ballot is really asking whether HISD should submit itself to state recapture and send $162 million in local property tax dollars to Austin. The correct answer is "NO."
If this misleading ballot provision passes, HISD will not only be required to send $162 million in local property tax dollars to the state next year. The district will also likely face higher annual payments for the foreseeable future under the state's broken school finance system.
The mandate comes about because rising property values have made HISD subject to "Robin Hood" provisions under the Texas Education Code. All those skyscrapers and rapidly appreciating homes have apparently pushed HISD over the top.
As Texas schools are financed through property taxes, the recapture provisions (what we know as Robin Hood) were supposed to provide a way to equalize school funding across the state - for poor and wealthy schools alike.
In May, the Texas Supreme Court held that this system of school finance is marginally constitutional. Consider that assessment a D-minus grade. The fact of the matter is that the state's school funding formula fails to accomplish its intended goals of helping poor school districts.
Technically these recaptured funds are supposed to help schools that need the resources. If the provision worked like a true Robin Hood, it would "rob" from the rich and "give" to the poor. But in reality, the system robs from the poor and gives to legislators so that they don't have to raise state taxes. There's no guarantee that poor schools will receive a single extra dime if HISD pays up.
How does this work? Simply put, the state keeps two bank accounts: one for general revenue and one for the recaptured Robin Hood sums. Every dollar that the state pays from Robin Hood frees up general revenue money that the state otherwise would have to spend to help poor schools. So instead of giving extra money to needy districts, any HISD money will essentially be spent on highways, border security or some other appropriation besides education.
If this passes, then HISD is projected to send more than $1 billion of our local property taxes to the state over the next four years. Not only does that hurt HISD, but it looks an awful lot like a state property tax - which is prohibited in the Texas Constitution.
Houston's economy is strong and diverse, but to maintain that edge Houston needs well-educated students. If HISD has to pay recapture, it will face a $95 million budget deficit in the next budget cycle.
In an ironic twist, that budget deficit will end up hurting the very students that Robin Hood is supposed to help. More than 75 percent of HISD students are disadvantaged. It is a sign of our bizarre and busted school finance system that the district with the largest number of poor families will have to give away critically needed resources.
Voters can block this preposterous outcome. By voting no, Houstonians will keep their money and instead authorize the commissioner of education to detach $18 billion worth of commercial property from HISD and assign it to other school districts. This has never happened before, and such a radical move would give the Legislature an opportunity to rectify the situation.
A "no" vote won't end the problem. However, it will give the Legislature the entire 2017 session to fix school finance in Texas and keep local taxpayer dollars in our HISD schools.
It is a tricky question, but the answer is simple. Vote "No" on attendance credits.
Across bright-red Texas, where many politicians tout small government and low taxes, MUDs and other so-called special purpose districts are proliferating - and selling bonds - at a rate many experts inside and outside government find increasingly problematic. They cite high indebtedness, insufficient state oversight, cozy relationships with developers, a lack of responsiveness to citizens and potential conflicts of interest. MUDs can be created either by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality or the Legislature.
Their spread throughout the prairies that once surrounded Houston and other municipalities has helped fuel "growing unrest" about the property tax burden in Texas, said John Kennedy, senior analyst for the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, a nonprofit group based in Austin. Many taxpayers like Gay find it hard to track all the property tax bills they receive from counties, school districts, MUDs and other special purpose districts, Kennedy said.
"Those special purpose districts sort of operate in kind of a semi-netherworld out there," he added.
There are 1,751 active water districts in Texas, a class of special purpose districts tracked by TCEQ, ranging from large river authorities to tiny irrigation districts, including 949 MUDs, according to the state.
The epicenter of water district financing: Houston's suburbs.
Forty-four percent of those 1,751 districts are in Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties. Sixty-five percent of the 949 MUDs are in those three counties - 389 in Harris County, 146 in Fort Bend County and 85 in Montgomery County.
MUDs are the most popular type of water district in Texas with developers, in large part because they hold enormous sway over how they're created and because MUDs are empowered to issue tax-exempt bonds covering the developers' infrastructure costs.
Taxpayers' advocates increasingly view them as a problematic way to pay for infrastructure in the face of climbing local government debt, given their sweeping power to sell bonds and raise taxes.
A few months ago, a cabinet maker and his wife were recruited to move into a manufactured home parked on a dirt road that was plowed into the woods on the west side of Conroe in Montgomery County.
Daniel and Deborah Spiecher are now the only residents of a newly created municipal utility district, or MUD, carved from 82 acres of land there. They are also the only ones eligible to vote Tuesday on $500 million in proposed bonds to develop that tract.
In fact, they are among just seven voters who will decide the fate this week of $1.07 billion in bonds for roads, water, sewer and recreational facilities in three such districts that were recently formed in this fast-growing county north of Houston. The debt will be repaid with taxes imposed on future residents and businesses. While some believe the MUDs provide a means to bring about high-end development in an orderly way, critics say they are out of control, with developers manipulating the democratic process to essentially take on the roles of cities and borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to make public improvements.
Montgomery County resident Adrian Heath decries the lack of transparency and citizen input into what critics call "rent-a-voter" MUD elections. Heath notes that the billion-dollar MUD proposals make the contentious, countywide election over a $280 million road bond package look like "kid stuff."
Yet an attorney representing one of the developers for the three MUDs refers to these initial seven voters as "urban pioneers."
"They move onto the land and help establish new communities, paving the way for the future homeowners," said Angela Lutz, the attorney for Stoecker Corp., which plans to develop land covered by a separate MUD on Conroe's west side and also north of The Woodlands. She stressed these elections are completely legal, as well as being "typical and ordinary" and the way MUDs have operated for decades.
- Representatives of Houston First Corp. are proposing to transform the area around the George R. Brown Convention Center into a landscaped and more walkable pedestrian-friendly city center, with more retail and less car traffic, in time for the city to host the NFL's marquee game three years from now.
- Civic leaders have not put a dollar figure to the project, which would be funded entirely by Houston First, the quasi-governmental agency that owns the Hilton Americas Houston and manages more than 10 city-owned buildings including the convention center.
The project, if approved by the Houston First board, would be completed in spring 2016, said Ric Campo, who chairs both the agency and the Super Bowl 2017 host committee.
The convention center area would be a focal point of the city's Super Bowl-related activities. Campo said it could accommodate about 100,000 revelers.
- While releasing detailed renderings on Thursday, Campo described the project as still in the conceptual stage. He said the Houston First board of directors has the authority to approve or reject the design and set the budget.
We are leading the effort to have Houston recognized as one of the great cities of the world. Houston First is a local government corporation that manages more than 10 city-owned building, plazas, and parking facilities. Properties include Miller Outdoor Theatre, the Wortham Center, George R. Brown Convention Center, Jones Hall, and Hilton Americas-Houston.
The primary offices of Houston First are located within the George R. Brown Convention Center.
The project, which has yet to be formally approved, would involve opening up the center's look by replacing the front walls with paned glass that allows dramatic views; adding restaurant and retail space and shaded places for people to sit at ground level; and reducing Avenida de las Americas that runs in front to three lanes from eight.
That space currently used by cars and buses would become a landscaped pedestrian area with a row of trees and tables for sidewalk dining.
"The convention center needs to be more than a big box to collect people," said Marie Hoke, principal at WHR Architects, the project's lead architect. "The goal is to break it down to a more human scale and offer more amenities to the building users and visitors to the district."
It would be the area's biggest makeover since Discovery Green and would leave its mark on the eastern edge of downtown long after the Super Bowl LI teams and their fans have departed for home.The article mentions that the upcoming game is providing a push to design and implement a variety of project designed to make the city seem not only like a good place to have a party, but a place people might consider moving to - and perhaps start a business.