GISD to ask state to keep part of refund

GALVESTON —The Galveston school district will seek a novel fix to a novel problem.

It will ask the state to keep part of a new tax refund instead of sending off money as part of the state’s Robin Hood school funding formula.

The board voted Wednesday to hire an Austin consulting firm to approach the state education agency with the plan. But some questioned whether it was necessary to spend $2,000 to $15,000 instead of administrators approaching the education agency themselves.

Per-student property values became great enough this year to force the school district to send off money to its poorer counterparts. It has to send off $2.5 million in the present school year and that figure could go as high as $11 million in the coming year.

In November, Galveston voters became the first in the state to reject two plans before them to meet the requirements of the funding formula. They were asked to vote to either send the money to the state or to send it directly to a poorer district, as the Texas City district does.

The other options to meet the law’s requirements are likely to be a lot less palatable. They include the state unilaterally merging the district with another or detaching part of the area and adding it to another district.

The Galveston district also could possibly put the two options rejected in November up for another vote.

But Joe Wisnoski of the firm Moak, Casey & Associates said there could be another option.

Under the school-funding law passed last summer, the state is now sending money back to school districts to cover the cost of property-tax relief. For the Galveston district, that amounts to about $6 million this year.

Wisnoski, who until last year worked for the state education agency, said his firm would propose that Galveston take that payment less whatever it owes under the Robin Hood law.

He said he hoped the Legislature would pass a more comprehensive school-funding bill in the session that starts in January.

“Ideally, this is a temporary fix,” he said.