The Robin Hood plan was a media nickname given to

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolled bill, enrolling, enactment of a bill, enacting, or promulgation, promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous Government, governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law i ...

enacted by the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

in 1993 to provide court-mandated equitable school financing for all school districts in the state, in response to the

Texas Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) is the supreme court, court of last resort for civil matters (including juvenile delinquency cases, which are categorized as civil under the Texas Family Code) in the U.S. state of Texas. A different court, the ...

's ruling in ''Edgewood Independent School District v. Kirby''. The law "recaptured" property tax revenue from property-wealthy school districts and distributed those in property-poor districts, in an effort to equalize the financing of all school districts throughout Texas.

Background

Article 7 of the

Texas Constitution The Constitution of the State of Texas is the document that establishes the structure and function of the government of the U.S. state of Texas, and enumerates the basic rights of the citizens of Texas. The current document was adopted on Febr ...

states, in part, "it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools". However, the state of Texas only dedicates $.0025 portion of the state

sales tax A sales tax is a tax paid to a governing body for the sales of certain goods and services. Usually laws allow the seller to collect funds for the tax from the consumer at the point of purchase. When a tax on goods or services is paid to a govern ...

and the net proceeds from the

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, as well as earnings from the

Permanent School Fund The Texas Permanent School Fund is a sovereign wealth fund which serves to provide revenues for funding of public primary and secondary education in the US state of Texas. Its assets include many publicly owned lands within Texas and various othe ...

, to primary and secondary education. Otherwise, state funding is determined by the Texas Legislature. The primary source of education funding in Texas remains with the school districts' ability to assess

property tax A property tax or millage rate is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.In the OECD classification scheme, tax on property includes "taxes on immovable property or net wealth, taxes on the change of ownership of property through inheri ...

es.

Initial lawsuit

In 1984, the

Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) is a national non-profit civil rights organization formed in 1968 by Jack Greenberg to protect the rights of Latinos in the United States."MALDEF" entry in ''Los Angeles A to Z: An ...

filed suit against state Commissioner of Education William Kirby on behalf of the Edgewood Independent School District in

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , s ...

, citing discrimination against students in poor school districts. The plaintiffs charged that the state's methods of funding public schools violated the

Texas state constitution The Constitution of the State of Texas is the document that establishes the structure and function of the government of the U.S. state of Texas, and enumerates the basic rights of the citizens of Texas. The current document was adopted on Feb ...

, which required the state to provide an efficient public school system. School finance lawsuits must take place in state court, since the

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ruled in 1973 that education is not a fundamental right protected by the

U.S. Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the natio ...

( San Antonio v. Rodriguez). The case, ''Edgewood Independent School District v. Kirby'', eventually went to the

, which unanimously sided with Edgewood.

Passage

Passage came in 1993, after the

threw out two attempts by the

Texas Legislature The Texas Legislature is the state legislature of the US state of Texas. It is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. The state legislature meets at the Capitol in Austin. It is a powerful ...

to write a constitutional school-finance system. The Legislature finally passed a funding plan that was accepted by the Court, in 1993. The goal of the system was an attempt to prohibit wealthy districts from being able to raise revenue to provide benefits which poorer districts could not. Two provisions of the legislation would seek to implement this: *First, school districts were strictly limited to a $1.50 tax rate per $100 assessed property value for maintenance and operations (M&O). School districts already over the limit could continue at that rate. The tax rate was not capped for additional taxes assessed to pay for bond packages for facility construction or renovation. *Second, notwithstanding the rate cap, districts were limited to M&O revenues which did not exceed a statewide rate per student. Any revenues in excess of the statewide rate were "recaptured" by the state and given to poorer districts. The wealthy district could, in lieu of state recapture, enter into an agreement with a poorer district to transfer funds. It is this portion of the legislation which earned it the "Robin Hood" name.

Ersatz state property tax, reform

But 10 years later, the Robin Hood plan was in jeopardy again. In November, 2005, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that, since the vast majority of school districts were having to tax at the maximum maintenance-and-operations (M&O) tax rate of $1.50 per $100 of property valuation just to raise enough money to meet state mandates, the school-finance system was, in effect, a state property tax, which is prohibited by the

. The

, meeting in a special session in April and May, 2006, passed legislation that met the court's requirements that local districts have "meaningful discretion" in setting tax rates. A series of bills changed the school finance system to cut school M&O property taxes by one-third by 2008, but allowed local school boards to increase tax rates from the new, lower levels, although generally only with voter approval. Some of the local property tax revenue lost by the one-third cut will be replaced by state revenue from a new business tax and higher cigarette taxes. The

Comptroller A comptroller (pronounced either the same as ''controller'' or as ) is a management-level position responsible for supervising the quality of accounting and financial reporting of an organization. A financial comptroller is a senior-level executi ...

estimated a five-year $23 billion shortfall from the revised tax system.

References

Resources