The Briefing Room
State Chapters => Texas => Topic started by: thackney on January 02, 2019, 06:11:50 pm
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The Texas oil boom is a boon for Texas schools
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2018/12/31/texas-oil-boom-boon-texas-schools (https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2018/12/31/texas-oil-boom-boon-texas-schools)
...What many people may not realize is that Texas has a couple of endowments tied to oil and gas extraction that benefit its schools.
In the 1876 Texas Constitution, legislators showed unusual foresight by setting aside land in West Texas for each fund, stipulating that any sales or proceeds from the land should remain part of those funds. Little did they know the enormous underground riches of the Permian Basin....
...The Permanent University Fund, PUF, is the principal endowment fund for the University of Texas and Texas A&M systems. Endowment assets for UT and A&M amounted to $32.9 billion in November, surpassing Yale University to become the second-largest university endowment in the country, just behind Harvard University, which has $39.2 billion. The size of the Texas endowment has expanded 20 percent over the past two years, and nearly doubled over the past decade, a time when new drilling techniques triggered an oil boom in West Texas and made the United States the world’s largest oil producing country.
The total assets of the Permanent Schools Fund, the PSF, an endowment for public K-12 schools, increased 14.7 percent in fiscal year 2017, thanks in part to a 27 percent increase in the value of the fund’s mineral interests.
This means that our state’s largest university systems and public schools have revenue streams that relieve the burden on taxpayers. Not entirely, of course. The PUF supports universities that educate around 376,000 students each year; Harvard has around 36,000 students. And anyone who pays property taxes can see that local schools rely heavily on local taxpayers and need better funding mechanisms from Austin.
A second benefit is that the funds are used to guarantee debt issued by the universities and local school districts. Debt rating agencies consider the funds very stable, and this allows schools and universities to borrow at low interest rates. That further reduces the ultimate cost for taxpayers....
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The school I went to as a kid - Glasscock County ISD - (Garden City), is now even wealthier. It was not rich, but not a poor district when I attended it, but due to the oil boom in the mid 1970's (I graduated in 1974), 1980's and now, it is very rich. The Texas Robin Hood act forced the school board to raise tax rates back in the 1990's. Now they have to share their weath with 'poor' districts.
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The school I went to as a kid - Glasscock County ISD - (Garden City), is now even wealthier. It was not rich, but not a poor district when I attended it, but due to the oil boom in the mid 1970's (I graduated in 1974), 1980's and now, it is very rich. The Texas Robin Hood act forced the school board to raise tax rates back in the 1990's. Now they have to share their weath with 'poor' districts.
Which is larceny.
No way that is fair. Anyone living in a poor district can move, instead of our benevolent government stealing money.
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The Texas oil boom is a boon for Texas schools
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2018/12/31/texas-oil-boom-boon-texas-schools (https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2018/12/31/texas-oil-boom-boon-texas-schools)
...What many people may not realize is that Texas has a couple of endowments tied to oil and gas extraction that benefit its schools.
In the 1876 Texas Constitution, legislators showed unusual foresight by setting aside land in West Texas for each fund, stipulating that any sales or proceeds from the land should remain part of those funds. Little did they know the enormous underground riches of the Permian Basin....
...The Permanent University Fund, PUF, is the principal endowment fund for the University of Texas and Texas A&M systems. Endowment assets for UT and A&M amounted to $32.9 billion in November, surpassing Yale University to become the second-largest university endowment in the country, just behind Harvard University, which has $39.2 billion. The size of the Texas endowment has expanded 20 percent over the past two years, and nearly doubled over the past decade, a time when new drilling techniques triggered an oil boom in West Texas and made the United States the world’s largest oil producing country.
The total assets of the Permanent Schools Fund, the PSF, an endowment for public K-12 schools, increased 14.7 percent in fiscal year 2017, thanks in part to a 27 percent increase in the value of the fund’s mineral interests.
This means that our state’s largest university systems and public schools have revenue streams that relieve the burden on taxpayers. Not entirely, of course. The PUF supports universities that educate around 376,000 students each year; Harvard has around 36,000 students. And anyone who pays property taxes can see that local schools rely heavily on local taxpayers and need better funding mechanisms from Austin.
A second benefit is that the funds are used to guarantee debt issued by the universities and local school districts. Debt rating agencies consider the funds very stable, and this allows schools and universities to borrow at low interest rates. That further reduces the ultimate cost for taxpayers....
Going back a bit further, the only reason the state had the capacity to issue these lands to the school systems is because of the state's entry into the Union whereby Texas did not give away these lands to the federal government as theirs.
Imagine the difference we would be in now if the feds controlled so much more of the state, including all these present state lands.
We as a state are far richer and are envied by others.
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Which is larceny.
No way that is fair. Anyone living in a poor district can move, instead of our benevolent government stealing money.
It is what it is. In North Dakota, only a few counties (17) actually produce the State's 1.4 million BOPD, but the extraction tax money gets spent all over the state's 53 counties. :shrug:
At least some of that money came back in the form of impact grants to upgrade infrastructure (Highways and bridges) and services (firefighting and police, mainly).
What really can't be ignored are the grants made by companies like Continental Resources to upgrade local smaller hospitals, as well as to specific schools. Those have made a difference.
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Which is larceny.
No way that is fair. Anyone living in a poor district can move, instead of our benevolent government stealing money.
It was forced on the state by a San Antonio judge in the 1990's. He re-interpreted the Texas Constitution's statement that state money for education shall be spit equally among a schools into the state shall ensure all schools are funded equally. I fault the legislature and the governor for not fighting that pile of crap.
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It was forced on the state by a San Antonio judge in the 1990's. He re-interpreted the Texas Constitution's statement that state money for education shall be spit equally among a schools into the state shall ensure all schools are funded equally. I fault the legislature and the governor for not fighting that pile of crap.
Just imagine that same judge sitting on the US Supreme Court voting to distribute Texas's oil among the other states 'because it is fair'.
It is exactly the same thing and a chilling prospect.