Last Thursday, Shaun Cranston, Site Executive for Brookfield Residential and 2016 Chair of the Austin Chamber Education Council, testified before the Texas House Appropriations and the Public Education Joint Committee on behalf of Austin taxpayers, students and businesses.

This crucial testimony focused on some challenges state law imposes on regions improving their economies. Central Texas employers are creating 20% of all new jobs in Texas. Under Texas' school finance laws, there are two ways to increase spending on education. We can raise local property tax rates even further, which are already making it difficult to attract manufacturing jobs and other middle-salary jobs to the area, or the legislature can return to traditional levels of state support.

Under our Texas school finance laws, our region is experiencing an increasing cost of living and a higher property tax burden, yet a decreasing amount of state money is being spent on education. In this upcoming two-year period, we anticipate the Texas Legislature will take $1 billion from Central Texas property tax payers with no increase in dollars spent per pupil on our children’s' education.

The State of Texas is making it harder for families to live in Austin and Central Texas. More than half of Austin students are on free and price supported lunches. But the pressure is felt at all income levels.

The state should:

• update the cost index (which hasn’t been updated since the Soviet Union existed) and include housing in their calculation,
• allow Central Texas to account for our transportation costs, which are prohibited from many of the districts in Central Texas or
• they can set a rate or dollar ceiling on the amount that can be taken from local property taxpayers.

Austin is leading the way in Texas for job creation and innovation. To maintain this growth, we need to keep Central Texas a desirable place to live. We need to continue offering a high quality education for our children. The Texas legislature needs to act now.