The Texas Commission on Public School Finance met on April 19th to take their agenda with a focus on revenue, finance, and tax.

This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics the committee took up. This report is not a verbatim transcript of the hearing; it is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.

Tax Policy Issues Panel
Nicole Kaeding, Director of Special Projects, Tax Foundation – Texas Tax Policy: Options for Reform(PDF)

  • Goal to provide data analysis and research
  • Provided overview of academic literature on taxes and growth
  • Comparative state tax policy – 4 large categories: tax rate, tax collections, tax burdens, tax structure
    • Provided slides that gave sampling of Texas in each of those categories
  • When there is a reliance on severance taxes, able to export burden in order to make taxes appear low
  • Texas has 13th best tax structure in the country according to state business tax climate index, we rate 6th nationally but 49th corporate which impact individual score
    • Why 49th? Because it includes margin tax
  • Texas is one of only five states that uses a gross receipts tax as its business tax
  • Brister – any distinction between gross receipts tax and sales tax
    • Ideally sales tax should apply to all final consumption of goods and services but that doesn’t generally happen in most states
  • Property tax in Texas is higher than many other states, but most states have much more diverse tax bases
  • Suggested reforms include
    • Repealing the franchise tax would improve Texas’ competitiveness, reduce for costs for consumers and improve job opportunities
    • Gross receipts tax – tax all the intermediate, those in the production cycle and paying taxes upon taxes which leads to higher prices for the consumer
    • States are moving away from gross receipts tax (margin tax) and the tax is so problematic that may have published material on it and are moving away from it
  • Repealing the franchise tax would improve Texas competitiveness, reduce the costs for consumers and improve job opportunities
    • Maybe not blanket that all grocery items should be taxed
  • Texas could also look at expanding its sales tax base
  • Johnson – property tax vs sales tax, which one is more regressive
    • Issue not really settled – some may argue home values scale with income, some may say homestead exemptions are progressivity, it is a bit of a contentious issue regarding what is called a property tax
    • Under progressivity need to find way to target relief and not just provide a blanket on it
  • Expanding sales tax base to services is actually progressive
  • Regarding question on corporate income tax vs margin tax
    • Ideally will have neither but this gross receipt tax is slightly more burdensome than corporate income tax
    • Would probably take a structured corporate income tax over margin tax but overall would much rather broaden of sales tax base
  • Williams – a factor in growing the economy is an educated work force, but need revenue
    • If goal is to find revenue, modest sales tax base expansion would more than find the revenue
  • How to target relief – examples: tie onto federal earned income tax credit, grocery credit that is targeted with set amounts
    • Williams – so groceries not taxed
    • Flows as credit through income tax to lower income
  • Johnson – ways to look for circuit breakers
    • Since you don’t have income tax, will have to be a bit more creative on vehicle to target tax relief instead of having blanket exemption to everyone
  • Bettencourt – blanket data on tax collections on slides see significant gap in years, in Texas has seen jurisdictions in 2013-2016 like Bexar and Harris collecting 30% more revenue in recent years & regarding state and local tax burdens, do you have any newer data
    • Challenge is that you all do everything different
    • Point is well taken, Bettencourt said 6 years is too far off for the data
    • Bettencourt – agrees with her point on franchise tax, adopting a 19th century tax in 21st century and would not have supported it
  • Bettencourt – in regards to state business tax climate tax index, urban areas have a very high tax load
  • Bettencourt – disagrees with her assumptions on intangibles
  • Killian – how do we export burden of taxes to another state?
    • Severance tax on extracted activity
  • Killian – how is VAT tax more like a sales tax
    • A sales tax is just on the final, with a VAT it’s a combination so it does not compound only on value added
  • Brister – do many states tax wind, solar
    • Many states would tax under corporate income tax but would provide generous credits, example of one that is now scaling it back
  • Brister – any study of gambling tax, regressive, waste of time?
    • Concern on regressively on those taxes, think of them as being taxes
  • In regards to Killian question alcohol and cigarette tax, hesitate for state to use those as resources but once it becomes a revenue source you have lost point of putting excise on the product
  • Killian – refers back to history of margin tax in order to compress property tax rate, what is your sense of that for economy with intent to lower property tax bills
    • Tended to see in states that trade does not stay pay in place long, localities will try to find ways to capture revenue back that has been reduced
  • Bettencourt – alcohol taxes do continue to produce same amount of money
  • Williams– soda taxes being done to expand certain things in cities
    • Bad idea – if point of soda tax is to reduce obesity, then why use it to fund a new program
    • Bernal – so it’s a political savvy tax
  • Johnson – not indexed tax, how often should tax policy be reviewed and revised
    • Not sure there is a right answer to that question, she thinks they should think about it every year because she is a tax economist but thinks it needs to be thought about routinely
    • Spending side of the equation is a political discussion
    • Her goal is to here amount want to spend and what needs to happen to get to that amount
    • Policy is about tradeoffs and they need to be revisited but time frame determines on circumstances of the state
  • Brister – thanks witness and wants her to send detail on Nevada gambling

Steven Sheffrin, Professor of Economics and Executive Director of Murphy Institute, Tulane University – Fairness and Property Taxes in Texas (PDF)

  • Property taxes are never popular, but economists believe there are a lot of virtues of property taxes and a bit more progressive than sales tax and a bit more local control
  • Question is how to make property taxes more fair
  • Three reasons property taxes seem unfair: increase in value of property but does not equate to income, unlike other taxes, total levies are the sum of many units of governance
  • Fairness in property tax would have: procedural fairness, predictability and stability of assessments, some broad sense of vertical equity, clear relationship between taxation and services provided
  • “Texas conundrum” – property taxes finance schools in addition to other local entities, from external perspective Texas is higher, margin tax bring in little revenue and unpopular
  • Suggested local revenue fixes for non-school finance – exactions for new construction, example of California and Florida (Florida has a lot more private hospitals so they tax the hospitals)
  • Johnson – did it not drive up value of taxes as result of construction
    • It did obviously raise housing prices to some degree
  • Bettencourt – had one petrochemical plant that chose Louisiana specifically because of tax policy, any study on this
  • Talks about two types of property tax system and provides thoughts on buffering property tax shocks noting the next speaker will cover some items as well
  • Prop 13 has extreme limits, Texas doesn’t want to do it – noting it brought relief and protection but put a hard rate cap and limit of 2% assessment increase per year and assessment limits were so low created large gaps in amount of taxes paying
  • Gives pros and cons for options for Texas
    • Strict cap – pro (1 point) & con (3 points)
    • Homeowner exemptions – 1 pro/4 cons
    • Classification of property has 4 questions presented with it
    • Lower assessment limit increase for homeowners from 10% to 7%
      • Has one pro and one con with three statements that this “just redistributes” the tax burden, could be a constraint on local officials and schools could require temporary additional state funds
    • Enhance Rollback Process could be another option – makes several points including political actors may have different agendas
      • Options for non-schools has 2 pros and 2 cons
      • For schools – any substantive change would need to navigate complex legal decisions on school finance, given these considerations not obvious how TREs for schools could be change
    • Brister – asked about other options to spread out
      • Recapture not as common in other states
      • Generally, use of income tax
      • This is a substitute, recapture when you don’t have income tax
    • Final thoughts
      • Texas property tax system has many admirable features, don’t want to destroy those, but given heavy burden some additional considerations may be given to various things (ie alternative local revenue sources, additional safety valves, etc)
    • Johnson – application of fees and exactions, demands on growth
      • Examples he is familiar with are mostly financing home construction, option for state to allow for other non property ways to finance things
      • Believes when you push any tax too far you run into issues, would like to see diversification of taxes/tools that local communities can use
    • Johnson – school districts constrained on what they have to operate with
    • Bettencourt – mentioned parcel taxes, how many other states ran bypasses on property taxes?
      • Typically thought of as old fashioned charges, gives some history on escaping from taxes but in some developing countries they developed tax on sq footage as vehicle to get around ad valorem tax, parcel taxes criticized so it does provide a degree of protection but in general the move is toward value taxes and away from square footage
    • Brister – asked for more details on California example
    • Williams – bigger parcel, means bigger the value and more likely to appeal but small property owner does not have those kind of resources, any research on perception of fairness of appeal
      • Not aware of any
      • Value is very difficult
    • Killian – gave his example of what his property sold for versus value, not equivalent
      • Previous stories of things selling for $5 – no record
      • Assessments themselves are on record

 

Daphne A. Kenyon, Resident Fellow in Tax Policy, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy – Improving the Property Tax: Lessons from Other States (PDF)

  • Property tax is less volatile, so big advantage
  • Provides 7 possible lessons from other states such as: improve transparency, adopt a circuit breaker, revise truth in taxation/rollback, etc
  • Bettencourt – asked about Governor’s plan, this brings up the Governor’s plan and will hear a lot of other plans – there needs to be a way to score the plans
    • Massachusetts system is not bad which limits levy and increased to 2.5%
    • Still heavily reliant on property tax
  • No state will be a perfect model
  • Shows school district ballot language & fire station language in New Hampshire
  • New Hampshire paradox – New Hampshire depends more heavily on property tax but there is no property tax revolt, their property tax process is transparent
  • Bettencourt – are voters the residents or owners of property or do you need to be a resident?
    • Bettencourt – no there is a lot of out of town voters, but interesting concept for a 100% voter approved property tax system
  • Utah’s truth in taxation designed to generate no increase with some exemptions
  • Different ways to provide tax relief
    • Fixed-dollar homestead exemptions has a pro, tax caps have a con, assessment limits benefits certain homeowners
    • Big fan of property tax circuit breakers
  • When New Hampshire reformed its school finance system there was call for property tax relief and they have a circuit tax breaker, 2 non-income tax states currently have a circuit breaker and 1 non-income tax state discontinued it
  • Protecting property tax based is important, they are following dark store loopholes at their institute
  • Dark Stores Assessment theory – Asserts that best comparable sales for valuing big box stores are those of vacant or abandoned big box stores (dark stores)
    • Dark store assessment appeals on the rise, affecting at least 12 states and successful appeals diminish local tax base and threaten municipal credit
    • Seeing some of this activity in Texas, just saying watch out
  • Slide covered regarding tax inventive review councils (TIRCs) and publication “Rethinking Property Tax Incentives for Business”
  • Part of challenging comparing recapture is that it is called different things to different states (example are donor towns and gold towns – these examples appear to have resolved the issue)
  • Suggested two things to make property tax easier: lump sum payments on property tax so solution is to allow monthly property tax payments (shows Milwaukee as an example) & property tax adjustments in the wake of natural disasters (this report is in progress)
  • Bettencourt – when do you expect paper to be done? Would suggest it is automatic rather than to leave it up to each taxing district
    • Next month
  • Bernal – actively looking for bill to file regarding property taxes (monthly payment) and looking for sponsors in Senate
  • Bettencourt – we were taking payment plans monthly, obviously want to provide tax payers all the options so will be happy to look at it
  • Taylor- maybe don’t have to charge interest because making payments

Lisa Christensen Gee, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy – From Property Tax to Revenue Sources, Tradeoffs, Trends (PDF)

  • Worked as public school teacher and now with ITEP and she focuses on state tax policy issues
  • Reviews their mission to ensure access to accurate and timely information
  • Bernal – when you were invited here, was the stated purpose, “how to solve education finance and cut property taxes?”
    • The ask was on school finance with the understanding that there is a desire to lower property taxes
  • A combination of things will be required to solve the issue of property taxes
  • Property Taxes
    • Discussed current tax expenditures and tax exemptions
    • Texas has an excellent report of expenditures
    • Need to look at economic incentives and best practices there in, being sure that they are done with emphasis on best public gain for dollars spent
    • Texas received an “improving” status by PUE for economic incentives
  • Big ticket items that affect tax base include: commercial appraisals, agricultural evaluations, homestead exemptions and chapter 313 abatements
  • Bernal – presentation shows “big ticket items” looking at commercial appraisals can you provide additional information?
    • Not a subject matter expert on that, included it to provide a high-level view that it is a significant factor in tax base
  • Sales Tax
    • Three options include: broadening tax base (generally less desirable than target tax relief), increasing tax rate, and a combination there in
    • Discussed consumption taxes in terms of rates between income levels
  • Discussed state responses to sales tax regressivity
  • Challenges relating to eliminating the grocery tax include it being contentious
  • Broadening sales tax base: services and digital goods could help broaden base, some states have has success in broadening sales tax base to include services (Connecticut, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio and Rhode Island)
  • Raising the sales tax rate – Texas is surrounded by states that have higher rates of sales tax allowing Texas to justify that raise a little easier
  • Reviewed the motor fuel tax
    • Recommends increasing the gas and diesel taxes (last time raised was over 26 years ago)
    • 26 states have revised gas tax since 2013
    • Want to include inflation adjust the gas tax to keep up in the future
  • Discussed new approaches to solving eroding bases in motor fuel tax taxes
    • Could charge fees for electric and hybrid vehicles as they still use the roads (17 states have some charge on electric and hybrid vehicles)
    • New industries like ride share business could be included and captured in taxes
    • Mileage tax: taxing motorists based on miles driven than fuel purchased (methods are in exploratory stages in many states)
  • Excise taxes: usually intended to limit use as opposed to increase base, but in short term would still increase revenues, will not be a silver bullet for school finance
    • Cigarettes – vape/e-cigarettes have begun consideration in some states being individually taxed
    • Soda – mostly taxed at the local level but contentious, may consider a carve out of the grocery tax (22 states are doing that currently)
    • Cannabis- estimates about $1-3 billion in new tax revenue if legalized
  • Franchise tax
    • Factors leading dissatisfaction includes: Lack of sensitivity to ability to pay, Complexity and Revenue forecasting difficulties
    • Cutting rates or eliminating franchise tax does not affect those key dissatisfactions – limits ability to achieve spending goals like public education finance
  • Other non-income tax states
    • The ones that are doing well have unique economies (gambling, high levels of tourism), South Dakota is a good measure of similar state
    • Washington, Wyoming, Tennessee and Alaska are struggling for a variety of reasons
  • Johnson – Georgia had special purpose local sales tax, have you seen other states using a model like that to limit property tax?
    • Yes, will provide additional information regarding that specific to school districts
  • Some states are considering income-like tax: Alaska proposed broad-based income tax, Washington proposed capital gains tax, Wyoming was considering until mineral strike eliminated that need
    • Considering: Capital gains, Payroll tax and Broad-based income tax
  • There is an importance in maintaining a diversified tax base
    • Recommends not eliminating tax sources

 

Current Sources of Public Education Funding 
Leo Lopez, Chief School Finance Officer, Texas Education Agency – FSP Method of Finance Breakdown (PDF)

  • Review line items in slides and what revenues go into each one
  • Sales tax and occupation taxes are two primary components going into the Foundation School Fund
  • Amounts of recapture accounts for about 11% of total funding for FSP
  • Available School Fund current estimated at $1.3 billion net of $1bilion transfer for IMA
  • Lottery Proceeds – $2.6 billion goes to FSP, about 60% of lottery proceeds
  • Taylor – regarding property tax relief fund and recapture are close in regards to effort from the state, finds that interesting

Tax Policy Issues (Cont)
Joe Wisnoski, Moak Casey

  • Observation on how school finance function, treated they as dedicated state revenue
  • So when Lopez presents on receipts, missing piece is rest of pie – you get to see how the pie is divided up
  • So if you had more revenue in any category would just mean less general revenue, school formulas would change the size of the bucket
  • Accessing to revenue is pretty equal but the supplement vs supplant doesn’t expand what is available to school districts
  • teacher pay increased 8.8%
  • Districts do everything they can to become as efficient as they can
  • Provides second slide for what instructions spend on a per WADA bases for non-instruction general fund
  • Williams – not understanding final point
    • Many local choices made on how to structure a school budget and what to spend it on
  • Taylor – having trouble with chart, figuring out where you are going – does this include waterparks
    • Would not put it there
    • Taylor – have one we know of
    • Bettencourt – ISDs should not be in that business
  • Bettencourt – goes back to chart, do you know student head count
    • Don’t want to overstate spending of small districts since they can’t be as efficient so based it on WADA
    • Bettencourt – so mix bad in the quartile
    • Yes
  • Bettencourt – said inflation rate was 15%, asked about CEI
    • Consumer Price index was 15%
    • Mentioned basic allotment and fundamental driver of Tier 1 would be 7.9%
    • Bettencourt – does that include instructional materials
    • 85% of school finance does not include materials, contributions made to teacher retirement
  • Bettencourt – could send a list of districts that apply to each of these quartiles to help back up the detail
    • Sure
  • Bernal – hope you can help us see beyond the fog
  • Looked at general fund category
  • Johnson – wondering how pie might have changed over time, can you remind me of level 1 and 2
    • Level 1 is normally referred to as Austin Yield and it is indexed to property values
    • Johnson – recapture level 1 and 2
    • Recapture doesn’t apply to yield, level one is what happens at compressed rate and level 2 is recapture of taxes at compressed rate plus 6 cents
    • Property value growth is not impacting basic allotment which is shifting cost burden to local side and causes recapture to grow as well
    • There have been changes to basic allotment but not as rapid, it has some tendency to grow and legislature has put in some but it is a mixed bag
  • Ellis – for clarification would say non-instructional means non-essential or inefficient
    • Agrees
  • Brister – in non instructional funding, do other department of governments fund those or share funding for certain positions such as nurses and social workers
    • Thinks there is an argument to be made there is some collaborations to be made, there are some services that can be reimbursed for certain types of health care
  • Be aware of what you do to tinker because sometimes it just creates more problems
  • Brister – question on what will make huge difference, ie extra $200 as catalysts
    • Right on money side, big issue is how to become effective at what they are doing
    • Trick is when resources are needed and when district practices can be changed and not easy answer
    • Getting rid of something so you can do something else may create more problems
  • Brister – uses fracking as example and as it turns out it changed the box and we now have an abundant of resources but it was due to handful of companies that tried something that failed previously lots of times, how do we encourage districts to bust the box to do something that could change
  • Brister – giving money to education and you complain its never enough and sometimes take it from poor people to give it to you, how do we fund projects that help us find ways out of this litigation issue
    • Hit on right terminology, have to some extent an R&D issue, we tell districts they should go do something but don’t fund it
  • Johnson – asked for more clarification on the slides, first tier for general infusion of knowledge and other tier was for enrichment but dollars associated with enrichment are note substantial
    • These are local dollars and state funding goes with it

David Thompson, Thompson and Horton

  • Came prepared for conversation, no slides
  • Structure, process and revenue are his focus
  • Structure – would start with point that joke of only few people understand is not true – most of formulas do not go beyond Alg I but do have out of date formulas
    • Formulas themselves are manageable and some reason every state uses some sort of variation of foundation school formula if it is kept up to date
    • Basic allotment has simply not kept up with growth in property values – if not adjusted appropriately as value rises then reduces state share, increases recapture and puts stresses on system
    • If we has indexed basic allotment to property values would have addressed certain issues – state share would have been stable over time and recapture would have been less than half of what it is today
  • In response to Brister’s comments about a large spend making incremental changes – everything is keyed around time so performance becomes variable because kids start in different places
  • Talking about process being so complex becomes excuse to not dealing with it
  • Process – Foundation School Program was not driven by weighted student primary measure at one point, it was driven by personnel
  • Revenue – need to be looking at online sales, may be losing over $1 billion a year in potential sales tax revenue, dedicated increases to ASF as increases to basic allotment rather than simply offset general revenue
    • Sales tax should be something the state guards jealously
    • Would support increase in gasoline tax, user based tax, and heard comments this morning that many other states are looking at it
    • Need to be working with federal government on tax payment, state policy should work with federal policy
  • Taylor – talk about tinkering, but also need big shifts such as enrollment vs ADA
    • Agrees with comments that it is kind of a paradigm shift, under current system the money evaporates
  • Bernal – need to also have conversation about mainstreaming things that work like full day pre-kinder and dual language
    • Shift was when we went to weighted student approach, once you de-link the main thing schools spend money on and finance you erode system – don’t have funding system that directly links to what schools spending money on
  • Brister – said working groups will be those that work on ideas for funding and policy, staff can help you draft proposals to consider

Catherine Clark, TASB

  • School board aware of how unpopular it is to raise taxes
  • Resources should supplement not supplant
  • Use recapture and lottery revenue for public education should supplement and not supplant dollars that would go to public education
  • Reviews other things the committee has heard about such as increase to basic allotment
  • Also suggests to review unfunded and underfunded mandates, points to booklet they have compiled
  • TASB does not have recommendations for cutting specific mandates and believes legislature was trying to address a real need but problem is the need to provide funding
  • Three points: Recapture to go to public education and not offset GR, address unfunded mandates, and dedicate lottery revenue for formula
  • Taylor – does book list all mandates
    • Book is underfunded or not funded
    • Taylor – are 2/3 of mandates districts can get out of with DOI
    • Taylor – says DOI is ability to get out from under the unfunded mandates but not many taking them up on it

 

Dale Craymer, President, Texas Taxpayers and Research Association – Property Taxes and School Finance (PDF)

  • Fresh report off the report, includes specific information about individual districts
  • Relatively high tax for business but for individuals we are a low tax state
  • Property tax on business impact business climate
  • Shows pie chart noting in order to address overall property tax burden, need to include discussion on schools as well
  • Points to property tax growth chart, focus on school tax portion showing where state made policy decision to reduce taxes in some form overall did not have an impact in the property tax burden
  • Shows chart on increase in school M&O bill so values are biggest part driving school tax increase
  • Reviewed how property tax works in school finance, equity and its consequences
  • Talks about school M&O tax rates comparing high rate and low rate districts – gap has flattened out tax rates and has done so by driving up tax rates
  • Points out Rider 3 that points out specifics of school finance and believes additional information should be included in rider 3 such as local property tax revenues not redistributed, etc
  • Recommend: Compress Tier 1 school tax rates, retain current Tax Ratification Election requirement, improve tax and fiscal transparency
  • Most states are three legged stool and it is most common
  • Johnson – asked for more details behind chart data on MFI
  • Bettencourt – notes certain slides show what has been happening to tax payer bill over a long period of time, will need to be able to score proposals and understand what they will do
  • Johnson – because of values growing do not translate in education growth
    • Disagrees, growth goes to growth of transportation, pay salary
    • School districts are absorbing cost of inflation
  • Was talking about basic allotment, but overall system will need more money as it has more students
    • Johnson – no adjustment in finance system that accounts for inflation
    • Thinks inflation should be taken into account when setting basic allotment but property value growth should be economic determinant
  • Ellis – property value growth, way to categorize those who move into area that is desirable versus those homes increasing in value
  • Huberty – no increase to basic allotment is just not true, legislature does identify but not suggesting there is a better method and may have a different thought process being tied to CPI and it has been zero
    • Johnson – duly noted

 

Ray Freeman, Equity Center

  • Reviews their formula suggestion, state involvement would be that state would not be required to increase other than what is currently provided by law
  • Benefits of system is that it ends automatic shifting of burden, would provide tax relief

 

Dick Lavine, Senior Fiscal Analyst, Center for Public Policy Priorities – Potential Revenue Sources(PDF)

  • Been asked to talk about potential revenue sources
  • Recommends to scrub tax code, remove outmoded or wasteful exemptions
    • Argues that natural gas industry exemption is no longer needed
    • Local Option Homestead Exemption (LOHE)
  • Could modernize sales tax
  • Bring sales taxes up to date – example of alcoholic beverage taxes, if taxes were increased by 50% to increase potential revenue up to $112 million
    • Another example of gasoline/diesel tax up to date, if increased by 50% then the potential revenue is $1.8 billion
  • Bettencourt – eliminating LOHE is about $500 on avg home of about $235k in perpetuity, believes that would not be looked at favorable
  • Bettencourt – didn’t we recently have a mixed beverage tax increase, no matter what happens that revenue goes up
    • Yes we did have that, alcohol tax recommendation is something different
  • Johnson – how many districts offer local option homestead exemption?
    • Fewer than 200

Michael Amezquita, Chief Appraiser, Bexar Appraisal District – Testimony to Commission on Public School Finance (PDF)

  • Not advocating for either position just to inform
  • Sales price disclosure & lack thereof and the equity appeals
  • Reads some key points from his testimony
  • Brister – so about hiring someone with MLS access to sales prices? How to fix?
    • Not advocating it but require certain tests of market value
    • If not important policy, then would suggest legislature use a different method
  • Killian – this goes back to disclosure, it bleeds through whole system, it is a problem
  • Bettencourt – why not invite realtors in so they can give a counterpoint to the argument, given conditions set up on testimony
  • Again not advocating for sales tax disclosure, just point out it exists for Comptroller and then require appraisal districts to guess
  • Equal and uniform discussion – statute been around since 1997, not saying it needs to be abolished but corrected
  • Bettencourt – on legal side of equity argument, know Bexar county was successful on Dark Store, if judges making decision on one then what is wrong with other
    • Not just the court but it’s the review board as well
  • Commercial litigation because they are unequally appraised
  • Bettencourt and witness have further discussion on the issue

Next meeting will be May 3rd