{"id":361081,"date":"2026-07-04T15:34:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T15:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/361081\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T15:34:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T15:34:21","slug":"school-finance-and-revenue-caps-travis-county-firms-up-legislative-priorities-austin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/361081\/","title":{"rendered":"School finance and revenue caps: Travis County firms up legislative priorities | Austin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five weeks before the Texas Legislature convenes Jan. 8, Travis County\u2019s Intergovernmental Relations Officer Deece Eckstein briefed commissioners on county preparations for the upcoming session.
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\nEckstein reviewed the 12 priorities and 50 policy positions the commissioners adopted as legislative priorities<\/a>\u00a0Oct. 23. Seven bills are currently being drafted, he said. County staff is working to identify legislative sponsors.
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\n\u201cWe\u2019ve had conversations with almost all the members of our delegation about what priorities we have and what we intend to do,\u201d Eckstein said.
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\nCritical priorities\u2014for Travis County and other local taxing entities, including the city of Austin and area school districts\u2014include school finance reform and revenue caps, he said.
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\nCurrently taxing entities can increase their property tax revenue up to 8 percent without a public vote. Gov. Greg Abbott has proposed requiring a vote if revenue were raised by as little as 2.5 percent.
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\n\u201cIf there is not a solution on school finance, our community is looking at significant school closures,\u201d Travis County Commissioner Brigid Shea said. \u201cThis is not the fault of the school. This is the fault of the system that the state has allowed to remain broken. I think people need to understand how serious the harm will be to the community.\u201d
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\nThe city of Austin, Travis County and Austin Independent School District will host a discussion on the impact of revenue caps and school finance funding Wednesday, Dec. 5 from 9 a.m.-noon. The meeting will take place at the Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G, located at 500 E. Ceasar Chavez St., Austin.
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\n\u201cIt is of course very important for us to collectively share the burden of public education so that we can collectively share the benefits of public education,\u201d Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt said. \u201c[Education] is the great equalizer. But the state needs to step up and be honest about how we are funding education.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five weeks before the Texas Legislature convenes Jan. 8, Travis County\u2019s Intergovernmental Relations Officer Deece Eckstein briefed commissioners…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,128230],"class_list":["post-361081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-school-finance-and-revenue-caps-travis-county-firms-up-legislative-priorities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}